Weekend Cooking: Greek-style lamb and eggplant bake

I mentioned last week that I am now on the lookout for some new recipes that I can cook that will meet my requirement for healthy foods and my son's requirements for tasting good. I have borrowed a number of books from the library and tried a couple of new recipes so far. In both cases I thought that the food was quite good. Unfortunately, the boy wasn't quite as keen but I am not sure if that is just that it takes him a little while to get used to new foods or if he really, really didn't like it. I guess that at some point I will need to try making it again, if for no other reason that this is one that can be frozen and so will be good to have there for those times when I am struggling with needing to cook something as opposed to going to buy something or resorting to less healthy choices.

I have several other recipe books to hopefully identify some other options for good meals, particularly weekday meals, to try over the next little while.

This recipe comes from CSIRO and Baker IDI Diabetes Recipe Book

Serves 4
Prep time 20 minutes
Cooking time 1 hour

1 tablespoon olive oil
500g lean minced lamb
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 eggplant* cut into 1cm cubes
2 zucchini* diced
600g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 tablespoon chopped oregano or 1 teaspoon dried oregano
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley, plus extra to serve
1 tablespoon tomato paste (puree)
400g reduced-fat Greek-style yoghurt
1 egg
80g cooked basmati rice (from 80g uncooked)

*also known as aubergine and courgettes

Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a large heavy-based saucepan over medium heat and cook the mince in two batches, stirring until browned and baking up any lumps with the back of a wooden spoon Set the cooked mince aside, discarding any liquid in the pan.

Heat the remaining oil and cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic, eggplant, zucchini and 400g of the tomatoes and simmer for 5 minutes. Return the mince to the pan with the oregano, parsley , tomato paste and remaining tomatoes. Bring to the boil, then move the lid so it is half-covering the pan, allowing some of the liquid to evaporate. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 20 minutes. If there is still quite a lot of liquid, remove the lid and simmer for a further 5-10 minutes or until reduced.

Preheat the oven to 180C

Beat the yoghurt to loosen then beat in the egg and season well with freshly ground black pepper.

Add the rice to the mince and vegetables and stir to combine. Transfer to a 2 litre capacity baking dish. Spoon the yoghurt sauce evenly over the top and bake for 20 minutes. Leave to stand for 5 minutes then scatter over some extra parsley.



In the book it suggests serving with steamed green vegies for a compete meal, and that if you wanted this can be prepared the day before but should be heated for an additional 10 minutes to ensure that it is heated all the way through.

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