Mock Moussaka

This weekend I was sick (and still am), I had energy in short fits but I wanted to make a good/hearty dinner for us on Saturday so I tried my very own version of Moussaka.  You can do it little by little and never use up all of your 'sick' energy.


I had never had this dish before but many years ago when I still watched Iron Chef one of the judges and Iron Chef Cat Cora used to mention it often from their Greek heritage and I always thought it sounded interesting.  So I looked up some recipes for it and decided my version would be 'mock' because I didn't want to cook it with traditional Bechamel sauce (since flour is a no-no at this time) and maybe instead with some Alfredo sauce, also I used beef instead of lamb but other than that basically the same recipe... if you like eggplant (or even if you don't), this is the dish for you.  

If this were Lasagna, these eggplant slices are your noodles

Peel, slice and then salt your eggplant.  You can place it in a colander or on a rack (as above) to get it to sweat and release the bitter flavor it can have, do it for about an hour.  When you are ready to cook it, wipe it clean (don't wash or it will soak up that water) with a towel.

Meat mixture with no tomato sauce added as of yet...

Roasted eggplant laid nicely as my 'noodles' in the casserole dish

Meat sauce with tomatoes layered on top of eggplant

BEFORE - Home made Alfredo on top (only cause I was too lazy to go buy some Alfredo - oxymoronic)

AFTER

YUM!