In the movie they used an oval baking dish; I used a 9” glass pie dish (before the tomato sauce is in the dish, you might want to trace your parchment paper which will top the vegetables; you probably want it a little larger than the dish so it can tuck in around the edges a bit).
On the bottom of the dish, spread 1 cup of tomato purée or tomato paste (I’ve also used canned prepared diced tomatoes). Then, on top of that, add 1/2 onion, finely chopped and 2 garlic cloves, very thinly sliced. Stir it all together with 1 tbsp olive oil and then season generously with salt and pepper (and thyme/parsley; optional). Then spread it out evenly again. Put a little up the sides of the dish, too, as it will keep the vegetables from sticking to the dish.
Using a mandolin or, even faster, a food processor with a slicing blade, cut the following into 1/16-inch-thick rounds after trimming off the ends: 1 small eggplant (if you can get “Italian” or “Japanese” eggplant that would be a better size. I couldn’t find that, so I used a regular eggplant cut into quarters the long way, and only ended up using about 1 quarter. You can see in the picture that they end up like triangles, but put the rounded skin-side on top and it’s hardly noticeable); 1 smallish zucchini; 1 smallish yellow squash (the closer to a uniform cucumber shape, the better, but maybe get a couple of small squash if they're cheap, so that you have more of the larger rounds to use); 4 firm Roma tomatoes. So now you have four separate colorful piles of veggies. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
On top of the tomato sauce, arrange a circular strip of slices of the vegetables going from the outer edge to the inside of the baking dish, overlapping so just a smidgen of each flat surface is visible, alternating vegetables.My order was: zucchini (green), tomato (red), eggplant (green), squash (yellow). If you can get some help, this will go quickly. Think ‘assembly line’. I’d put 4-5 piles together in my hand at once, then gather the piles and lay them in the dish.
Drizzle 1 tbsp olive oil over the vegetables and season them generously with salt and pepper. Remove the leaves from a few thyme springs with your fingertips, running them down the stem. Sprinkle the fresh thyme over the dish.
Cover dish with a piece of parchment paper cut to fit/tuck inside.
Bake for approximately 45 to 55 minutes, until vegetables are clearly cooked, but with some structure left so they are not totally limp. And you should see that the tomato sauce is bubbling up around them.
We served this on top of a helping of rice — make sure the rice gets some of that tomato sauce!
