Any ideas for substituting the eggplant? This looks amazing, but my family won't touch eggplant.

This hearty recipe comes from vegan yum yum, a great blog by amateur vegan chef Lolo. She says this recipe was inspired by watching "The Sopranos"! Check it out:
Ingredients

Steps

You can check out more recipes like this one at vegan yum yum. Thanks Lolo!
Any ideas for substituting the eggplant? This looks amazing, but my family won't touch eggplant.
@Sara, what if you didn't tell them it was eggplant? 
I love vegan yum yum, I've made this before and it is really good. There's a lot of bread, true - just have a smaller piece!
Sara, try zucchini! I sometimes make zucchini parmesan when I have an abundance of zucchini in my garden (or I make it half zucchini, half eggplant). It's hard to tell the difference.
I am hoping that some one can help me with this issue. I am going to Italy in December with meat eaters, How can I eat in italy with out standing out like a sore thumb? Although I LOVE my friends I am going with, they are already giving me a hard time about my diet choices, they tell me to not worry about it in Italy and that everything MEAT is very fresh , not like here in the states...I understand and that is great but I do not have the energy to explain to them that that is not the only reason not to eat animals!!!! Please help!!!
Listen, if you go over there and start eating meat you will probably get sick. Tell them that you don't want to spend your whole trip in the bathroom! I've never been to Italy, so I'm not sure how to navigate the vegan thing, but hopefully someone here will!
This was really yummy! I added mushroooms and onions to the recipe as well to get a few more veggies in there!
This was delicious + easy to make! It does have a lot of bread but it was a treat. Really nice flavors and texture.
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