Monday 21 July 2008

Something For The Weekend

Thought I’d try a different type of posting today, by offering you the chance to re-create my Current Household Favourite Meal – Lentil Moussaka (my apologies for any spelling errors)

Items Required (based on sufficient for 2 people):
1x good sized saucepan
1x deep tray
1x oven with hob (don’t ask me about this new fangled Electric malarkey, we still use flints, firewood and stones here!)

Main dish
1-2 sticks of celery (depending on size)
½ - 1 whole onion (depending on size)
1 clove of garlic
1 tin of tomatoes (either pre-chopped or chopped by you to save 2p at Tesco)
125-150 grammes of Red Lentils
1 small-to-medium sized Aubergine (Egg Plant to you Americans)

Topping (optional)
2x eggs
150 grammes of Fromage Frei
Parmesan Cheese (or dairy free alternative)

Instructions:
Chop the celery and the onion very finely – the smaller the better with the onion. You can either chop or crush the garlic.

Put a bit of low fat oil (olive oil is good) in the saucepan and cook the onion, celery and garlic until the onion becomes translucent

Put the lentils (you can substitute Green lentils, but I’ve found that Red give it more taste) and chopped tomatoes into the pan and stir in – cover the whole mixture in water and leave to simmer for 40-45 minutes (checking from time to time that it hasn’t dried out)

At about 30 minutes take your Aubergine (they’re mostly purple here – leading us Brits to be severely confused as to why they get called Egg Plants) and slice thinly – put the slices under the grill and grill both sides until they change colour.

Take your deep tray and spoon out a thin layer of your lentil mix, followed by a layer of aubergine, then lentil mix, finishing with aubergines on top.

If you’re making the topping mix in the eggs and the fromage frei and spoon this over the top of the aubergine until it’s covered – then shake your parmesan over the top of this liberally. Put the whole thing in the oven on Gas Mark 4 for 30-35 minutes

Finally – don’t tell your vegetarian partner about this meal, as it’s so nice that they will demand it every other weekend until you’re utterly sick of it!

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

You put water in the pan while the lentils, tomatoes and vegetables are cooking in olive oil? I'd have to see it being done.

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

Nah - cook the onions, celery and garlic in just enough olive oil for them - then you add the lentils, tomatoes, stir in together till it's a gloopy mess and THEN add the water to simmer the whole thing

Deliah Smith eat your heart out! (NB - submit celebrity chef of your choice)

Roxanne said...

OK I'm gonna try it.
As I'm on holiday, I tried making a pear/berry crumble last week topped with gingersnap cookies.

The gingersnap cookies didn't work very well, and my two nieces - kind hearted 5 and 7 year olds that they are - whispered in their mother's ear if it would be alright if they just ate the ice cream. I was quite touched, as usually they wouldn't mind raising a fuss about what they didn't like, but obviously didn't want to hurt their dear Auntie Rox's feelings!

p.s. your measurement variations reminds me of how my mother shares recipes

Don't Feed The Pixies said...

Pear berry crumble sounds lovely, but nothing will ever surpass the great Rhubarb crumble.

Shame it#'s so hard to buy rhubarb

Roxanne said...

Meant to tell you ... if you ever come to Canada you must come to Western Canada. rhubarb grows like weeds here. People pay you to take it away :)

Hanna said...

Oh thanks for posting this! I was actually at the moment thinking about what I should cook for dinner today, but now I know! It sounds like a very tasteful meal. Mmmm. :)