Baking when it's baking

It seems daft to turn the oven on when it's baking outside but I like the idea of preparing a meal in the oven without having to faff about with the stove top. Slinging a few ingredients into a dish and letting the oven do the rest of the work is a much better idea than stirring a pot on a hot day. 

These two dishes take just under an hour at 180 degrees and improve in flavour if you let them cool for half an hour before serving 

For the courgettes, choose the smallest you can find with the flower intact if possible, but they taste just as good without. Place in an oven proof dish with two or three cloves of garlic and then open a jar or a tin of achovies in olive oil. Pour the contents through a tea strainer over the courgettes, pushing the anchovies through with a teaspoon. This gets rid of all those annoying small bones and turns the small fish to a purée. Squeeze over a whole lemon's juice and put into the oven at 180 degrees C . Cover with foil for the first 30 mins. Small courgettes will be ready in 45 mins, larger will take longer. 

Baked aubergine slices are healthier than the traditional fried ones and taste just as good. 

Slice as many aubergines as you want into a bowl and add a couple of tablespoons full of olive oil and a tsp of salt and pepper.  Rub the oil into the slices with your hands until they all coated all over. Spread in a single layer over a baking tray and bake in a 180 C oven for 15 minutes.  Remove, flip all the slices and put back for another 15 mins but check after 10 - they should be evenly soft, lightly coloured but not going  black.  With aubergines, overcooked is better than under. At the same time as the aubergines are cooking, have a tray of peeled chopped beef tomatoes, drizzled with 3 tablespoons of olive oil, salt and pepper and 3 crushed garlic cloves in the oven.  When the aubergine slices are cooked, the tomatoes can be mashed with a fork to provide an accompanying sauce.  Top with a few basil or parsley leaves and you have two tasty dishes with minimum effort.