Eggplant love - moussaka

I was at the West End markets on the weekend and they had the most beautiful looking eggplants. I just couldn't resist buying a couple, with the intent of making some baba ganoush for our dinner guests on Saturday night. One of the things I love most about eggplant is the colour - which is also the colour of our couches.

Anyway, for a whole range of reasons [mainly that I decided to cook a Mexican feast for dinner], I didn't make it.

So when it came to planning dinner for tonight, I thought "aha! I'll make moussaka!". Or, as my hubby has been calling it, Nina Mouskouri! [Yes, he makes me laugh every day :) ]

About 45 minutes in, I did wonder what I was thinking! Anyone who knows me well [i.e. since my undergrad uni days] knows that white sauce and I are not friends. AT ALL. Partly because I lived on tuna mornay for a year or two and the white sauce was always lumpy. But, you know, it was cheap. Today the smell of tinned tuna makes me gag. 

Back to the Nina Mouskouri. I had forgotten how long it took too cook, and starting it at 6pm meant there was no way we'd be eating by 6.30pm. And I was STARVING! But it was absolutely worth the wait. And the hassle of the white sauce. Mega thanks to the lovely tweeps who talked me through what to do with the sauce - @HereIAmLoulou, @lordphantom, @packetnetworks, @blackvalo and @peterpanwine. Gotta love twitter for dinner help! And so many other things... 

Check out that gorgeous white sauce!! 

What you need:
2 large eggplant, sliced about 1cm thick
1 tablespoon vegetable oil [grapeseed or ricebran are best]

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, minced

600g lamb mince

420g can diced tomatoes

1 tsp cinnamon

1tsp fresh rosemary


50g butter

60g plain flour

2 cups milk

80g grated cheese (I like Pizza Plus)

What you do:

I have a non-stick teppanyaki plate on my stove so I cook the eggplant slices on that without any oil. You could also use a non-stick fry pan, or bake them in the oven on a tray liked with baking paper. They take about 7-8 minutes on each side on a medium heat, I turn them every few minutes. 

While the eggplant is cooking, cook the mince and tomato filling. Heat the oil in a large-ish frypan [medium heat], add the onion then the garlic and fry for about 3 minutes. Add the mince and cook for about 5-6 minutes until it's cooked through. Use a wooden spoon to break the mince up, and stir regularly. Once the mince is cooked, add the tomatoes, cinnamon and rosemary. Mix it all together, turn the heat down low and simmer with a lid on for about 20 minutes. 

Pre-heat the oven to 180c. 

After the mince has been simmering for about 15 minutes, make the white sauce. 

Place a medium sized saucepan on the stove on a medium heat. Add the butter. Once the butter has melted and is bubbling, add the flour, stir quickly with a wooden spoon to make a roux. Turn the heat down slightly and stir until the roux is bubbling. Keep stirring for about 3 minutes then gradually add the milk - at this time swap the spoon for a whisk, and gently whisk the milk into the roux, until all the milk has been added. Whisk gently for about 7-10 minutes until it heats up and thickens. Once it has reached the consistency of a thickish custard, remove it from the heat.

To assemble the moussaka layer in the following way:

• add one third of the eggplant to the bottom of a lasagne dish
• cover with half the sauce
• one third of the eggplant
• half the sauce
• one third of eggplant
• white sauce
• sprinkle the cheese on top.

Bake in the oven for about 40 minutes, let it rest for 10-15 minutes before serving. This allows the white sauce to thicken up a bit so it doesn't ooze everywhere. 

Serve with steamed greens or a side salad. 

Serves 6. Which means we have leftovers for lunch - yay!

Moussaka 

Are there any dishes that you put off making because of an ingredient or a particular process? 

Coles fruit & veg prices go down down down

As we have seen in the media over the last few days, the retail giants (Coles and Woolworths for those of you not in Australia) have now decided to duke it out over the price of fresh fruit and vegetables. Coles started this battle when announcing yesterday that they are going to cut prices on "at least a dozen" more popular fruit and veg every week. A quick glance at the full page ad in today's Courier-Mail shows that Woolworths are matching or beating Coles prices on many of these items.

My first thought when I heard this was "jeez, the farmers just can't get a break". However Coles have been quick to say that lower prices will increase demand which will provide more certainty for farmers. Whether this actually happens remains to be seen. You can read the full media release from Coles here.

My second thought when hearing this was hmmm. Maybe there is some good here. Research shows only half of Australians eat the daily recommended allowance of fruit and veg, with many people saying they can't afford to buy fresh f&v as it's too expensive (personally I dispute this, but that's a conversation for another day!). What I'm wondering is this: now that fresh fruit and veg are cheaper, will people eat more? Especially those who have previously said it was too expensive?

There is much research that says eating 5 serves of vegetables and 2 serves of fruit a day provides significant health benefits, particularly in terms of long term disease prevention including the prevention of many types of cancer, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, cataracts and macular degeneration of the eye and type 2 diabetes. Not to mention the short term benefits. I don't know about you, but when I have a meal that contains lots of veggies, I feel a lot better after than I do after a meal of takeaway!

While Coles and Woolies fight it out, I'll continue to support my local farmers and my fabulous local fruit and veg shop (that is next door to Woolies and over the road from Coles) by stocking up at our local farmers markets and supporting small business owners in my community. 

Some of my favourite fruit and veg

Do you think lowering the price of fruit and veg will entice more people to eat it? Or do you think there are bigger challenges involved? 

Farmer's markets - San Francisco style

So once again, it's been quite some time since I blogged. And a lot has happened in my life since my last post (but more about most of that later!).

I've just returned from a very short 19 day holiday in Northern California - San Francisco, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite National Park and Silicon Valley. There were so many highlights! But I have to say, that one of the biggest was visiting the Ferry Building Farmer's Markets on a Saturday at lunchtime.

I went to the markets with a bunch of wonderful women I met at the BlogHer Food conference that I was very lucky to attend (thanks to the wonderful - and I have since discovered, legendary - David Lebovitz, who at the last minute sold his ticket to me). Many of these women were from other parts of the US, parts that don't have the beautiful rich soil, the year-round warmth and sunshine and rain that we have in south-east Queensland (or that they have in Northern California). They couldn't stop marvelling at the size of the veggies, but mostly they were amazed at the range, the colours and the flavours.

I learnt that it's hard to grow a long, skinny carrot when the ground is frozen solid for a large part of the year!

I had to take loads of photos because it was EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING that I couldn't buy anything! ARGH!

So many heirloom tomatoes!

Peppers of all colours, shapes and sizes

Chilis - perfect for my new favourite food - Mexican 

Pumpkins were EVERYWHERE! I loved these little babies. It's nearly Halloween...

These had me craving greens like nothing else (my mother would have been so proud to read that sentence!)

The mushroom varieties were unbelievable. I've never in my life seen so many different varieties! There is no excuse for buying the boring button mushroom at these markets!

Oh the garlic. How I wanted to bring this home!
Lucky I didn't as customs went through ALL our bags in Brisbane! 

The only thing I did buy that day was lunch. A gorgeous open sandwich with the sensational flavour combination of locally smoked salmon on sourdough with  heirloom tomato, red onion and cream cheese. I could have eaten 10 pieces!

I tried to recreate this yesterday, but the store-bought smoked salmon just didn't taste the same. I'll be off to the West End markets on the weekend to buy some hot smoked salmon!

This was lunch. Nom nom nom...

Where are your favourite farmer's markets? And what do you ALWAYS buy from them?