Aubergine Lasagne

I got the most awesome eggplants from my parents garden. Plucked fresh and cooked soonafter, eggplant takes on a whole new dimention. Super fresh eggplant has a texture kind of like granny smith apples; Crisp and firm, with a hint of flour as an after thought.

So I used the eggplant in a lasagne, it was bloody beautiful mate, check out the pix, good looking grub hey? Oh and I put in a pic of two thirds of my kids.

The following recipe will feed eight hungry people:

Ingredence:

6 egg plants. (600g).

1kg minced beef.

1kg tomatoes skinned and diced.

2 brown onions diced.

1 bulb, (not clove) of garlic diced finely.

8 large feild mushrooms sliced.

1 large green capsicum sliced.

250g of chedder cheese grated.

300g of reccota cheese.

250g of fetta (Australian) cheese.

Enough fresh rolled pasta to do about 6 or 7 layers.

Salt flakes and fresh cracked pepper.

Olive oil.

Method:

In a large heavy based pot, fry the onion slowly untill well softened. Max the heat and add the mince and garlic, cook untill done. Add the tomatoes with a pinch of salt and pepper. Lower the heat, simmer and reduce untill well thickened.

Roll out your pasta and set aside. Dust with extra flour beforhand to prevent the pasta sticking.

Ladle a small amount of sauce into a rectangle pyrex oven dish, this will form a layer to stop the pasta sticking. Now lay down pasta, sauce, mushrooms, pasta, sauce, chedder cheese, pasta sauce, capsicum, and repeat untill the dish is almost full.

In a mixing bowl combine the reccota and fetta cheeses with a little milk. This will be the sauce to go on top. As you pour over the sauce be careful not to disturb the other ingredence on the lower levels, it will blemmish the white look of the sauce. Crack a bit of pepper over the top, also try a sprinkle of ground Sumac, when it cooks with the cheese sauce it will release it's purple pigments. I recon that it looks abit like the colour of egg plant skin, so you get a bit of a visual aspect to the egg plant flavors.

Bake the big bugger in the oven at 190c for about 1 hour. As an extra touch turn on the overhead oven grill for a minute or so to brown up the top abit if not all ready that way.

Serve by cutting into squares and carefully lifting out onto a plate...... Yum.