Vegetarian Moussaka

Last night I cooked a vegetarian moussaka. It takes some time to prepare and cook. The primary ingredients are eggplant, olive oil, tomatoes and cheese.

Ingredients

• 2 medium to large eggplants
• 1 onion
• 1 can of organic chopped tomatoes
• 4 cloves of garlic
• Organic olive oil
• 1 zucchini - organic if you can get it
  
• 1/2 a large capsicum - also organic if you can get it (I have used TVP - Textured Vegetable Protein in the past instead of capsicum, but if you are not a fan of 'fake meat' then obviously use the capsicum.)
• 1 teaspoon of ground oregano
• 1 teaspoon of oregano flakes
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 100-200 grams of rennet free cheese

Thinly slice your eggplants into pieces longways. Put your oven on to warm at about 150 degrees C. Then fry your eggplant in a non-stick fry pan in a number of batches of around 4-8 slices. Use about a tablespoon of olive oil per batch as eggplant is hungry for oil. After you gently cook each batch place it in a tray in the oven to continue cooking and cover with foil after you finish the final batch.

Then finely chop your onion, garlic, zucchini and capsicum. Fry the onion of garlic in a fry pan with a little olive oil. Cook until the onion is a little glassy. Then add zucchini and capsicum and cook for a few minutes. Add your can of chopped tomatoes and half a can of water. Stir in the oregano and season to taste. Stir and reduce mixture for five minutes. You now have a sauce.

In a long flat dish (I used a glass Pyrex dish) put down a thin layer of your sauce, then a layer of eggplant slices, then a layer of cheese, then repeat the process building layers until you fill the dish and put some cheese on the top.

Then cook in the oven for half an hour at a temperature of about 150 degrees C. Total preparation and cook time is about a hour to a hour and a half. So you do need a bit of time to prepare this one.

Serve with some fresh crispy green leaves. I used cos lettuce with a light dressing I made up.

Enjoy!