A Little Bit Gordon And A Little Bit Delia

This is the first weekend in months that we had nothing to do. No kids at home. No birthdays. No dinner plans. Absolutely, completely, utterly NOTHING on the calendar. Woo hoo!

So I decided to make moussaka, which is a time-consuming labour of love.

First there's the lamb sauce, that was to Gordon's recipe.

Then the eggplant, also to Gordon's recipe and for once easier than Delia's. (She has you salt the eggplant and compress it for 30 minutes to supposedly get it to release a lot of it's liquid and therefore limit the amount of oil it can absorb when you fry it). Old Gordon just brushes raw eggplant with olive oil and then has you fry it in a dry pan, thus limiting the amount of oil it absorbs to the amount you brush on it in the first place. Nice one Gordon!

Then you boil potatoes, which is neither a Gordon nor a Delia step, but my own personal little quirk.

The bechamel come souffle topping is pure Delia.

Then you layer it, eggplant, meat, eggplant, meat, potato, bechamel souffle topping, and bake for an hour.

The result is this. Made with love and tasting absolutely fabulous, sweetie darling, especially when paired with a 2004 red that you found hidden way in the back of the wine rack.

Life is good!