Delia Smith's Moussaka

450-500g minced lamb
1 large aubergine sliced into half-moon shapes
225g onions, sliced
2-3 cloves garlic, minced
olive oil
2 tbsps tomato puree
a splash of red or white wine
ground cinnamon
fresh parsley, or Herbes de Provence
salt & pepper

75g butter
75g plain flour
3/4 - 1 pt milk
50g Cheddar cheese
freshly ground nutmeg
2 eggs

Salt the aubergine, put in a colander, put a plate on top and weigh down with a tin of veg.
Rinse, then fry. Put onto kitchen paper to absorb excess o/o.
Fry the onion, add the garlic, then the lamb mince.
Add the tomato paste, wine, cinnamon and herbs.
Simmer for 20mins.

Melt the butter, stir in the flour gradually. Remove from the heat. Add the milk gradually (you may not need it all).
Add the cheese and grated nutmeg.
Whisk the eggs and then add them to the sauce. Whisk until thick and smooth.

Arrange the aubergines on the bottom of an ovenproof dish. Pour in the lamb mince mixture. (You may need to layer the aubergines and lamb alternately).
Pour the sauce over the aubergines and lamb mince.
Put in the oven for 40-60 mins on 160-180 degrees C.

Serve with salad, pilau rice, steamed vegetables or crusty bread (probably not all four or you'll probably explode!)

Just A Quickie

Mea Culpa. It's been almost six months to the day since my last post. Gawd bless Richard Herring who has been blogging daily since 2002. I had planned to come here to record what's been happening over the past months, but I'm not in the mood so instead I'm going to post my new favourite soup recipe. I'm come back another time, maybe to spill my guts, maybe just to recount how my knitting and embroidery are going.

Parsnip & Ginger Soup

Ingredients: Parsnips, around 5, peeled and chopped
                    Carrot, peeled and chopped - mainly to improve the soup's colour
                    Onion, peeled and chopped
                    Cloves of garlic - 1 or 2 - peeled and finely chopped
                    Knob of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
                    Knob of butter, for frying vegetables
                    Pears; two small, peeled and chopped
                    Vegetable stock - about a pint
                    Powdered ginger and hot chilli sauce, optional
                    Coriander leaves, to garnish
                    Yoghurt, to stir in - optional

Cook the onions, parsnips and onion for a few minutes until soft.
Add the garlic and ginger, cook for another minute or two, then add the pear.
Add the hot vegetable stock slowly and simmer for 10-20 minutes.
Taste and add powdered ginger and/or chilli sauce.
Puree in a food processor when cool, then reheat to serve.

It's the easiest thing ever!

Recipe for Tiffin

Soak 50g of seedless raisins in 2 tbsps of brandy or OJ for 30-60mins.

Line the base and sides of 15-20cm square shallow baking tine with edible rice paper (or grease tin well).

Break into pieces 175g plain chocolate and melt over pan filled with boiling water (bain marie) w. 125g unsalted butter and a pinch of salt. Turn off heat as soon as chocolate has melted.

Stir in raisins, 125g chopped candied peel, 150g digestive or shortbread biscuits, crushed and 75g hazelnuts, toasted and roughly chopped.

Turn the mixture into the prepared tin and press down evenly. Chill in the fridge for several hours or overnight until firm.

Break or cut into squares and store in an airtight container.

Fruit, nuts and biscuits can all be substituted with any other cakey ingredients you have to hand.

I don't know why this is called tiffin. Tiffin, a word originating in the days of the British Raj, is a light meal or snack, often eaten at lunchtime (a packed lunch, if you will). Mum always used to make this at Christmas; it's great because you can use whatever you have in your cupboard, it doesn't take any cooking and keeps for as long as you refrain from eating it!

The reason I'm including this today, is simply that I found it in an e-mail when I was clearing out my Hotmail account.

Icepoles

When Twitter goes all 2002

Sunset, Belfast Airport, August 2010

Photo Upload

Such is the ridiculousness of my Sony Ericsson, the only way I can get photos from it onto computer is via Blogger. It's slow and tedious, but at least it works. They'll be Dropbox'd and removed in due course.
Then I can sit and try to figure out how to get photos off my even older handset that I had from around 2003 - 2010 and came with me to India. They're all saved in the handset, I believe and that phone didn't have internet capability. Expect curse words! But I do know the data cable isn't purely for decoration, like this one, so it might be a bit more straightforward. It couldn't be more Byzantine than what I've done these past two days.