While I was feeling nostalgic about my days in college, the kitchen classes I had with my college mates came across my mind and I remembered oh how we love the food that we made in classes! We would usually alter the recipe secretly by adding more portion to the standard recipe... lol.. we were greedy...

And one of my favourite dishes that we did is the Lamb Moussaka and

now you know why *points picture*

So, I wanted to try out the recipe again, unfortunately I couldn't find my text book which most probably stored in boxes. But I'm in the year of 2010! The era of the World Wide Web! Nothing can stop me from cooking my meal!!

Lamb Moussaka

Recipe from Thursdays for Dinner

For the Base:

• 9 Indian eggplants
• 2 potatoes
• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 1 cup of mozzarella cheese
• ½ cup of parmesan cheese
• ½ cup of breadcrumbs

For the Meat:

• 1 pound of ground lamb/beef
• 1 quarter cup of onion
• 2 cloves of garlic (minced)
• 1 quarter cup of freshly chopped parsley
• 2 fresh tomatoes chopped or the juice of ½ can of tomato juice
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• Salt and pepper to taste

For the Béchamel sauce:

• ½ cup of butter
• 2/3 cup of flour
• 3 cups of warmed milk
• 3 eggs

Slice the potatoes and eggplants into ½- inch slices. Place the slices on an oil pan in the oven for 10 minutes. Flip the eggplant and potatoes and cook the other side for another 10 minutes. Once eggplant is ready, remove from the pan and let them dry on paper towel.

To prepare the meat:

In a large skillet over high heat, add the olive oil, ground lamb, onion, and garlic. Next add salt, pepper, and parsley. Once the meat has browned add the tomato juice. Let the meat cook until all the juice is gone. Be sure to stir the meat continuously. Once the meat has cooked, set aside.

To prepare the béchamel sauce:

In a medium pot, heat the butter and mix in the flour. Add 3 cups of milk to the mixture. Stir continuously as the mixture begins to thicken. Once the mixture begins to boil, it will thicken. If you find that your mixture is lumpy, simply strain it. Once the sauce has begun to thicken, remove it from the heat.

Now that you have prepared the vegetables, the meat, and the sauce you can now begin assembling the moussaka.

Preheat the oven at 325 degrees.

Lightly brush a medium size pan with olive oil. Place your potato slices on the bottom of the pan. Next, layer the pan with about half of your sliced eggplants. Next, spread about half of the shredded mozzarella cheese and a sprinkle of parmesan cheese.

Next, add the cooked ground meat. Spread the mixture evenly onto the cheese.

Place the remaining slices of eggplant over the meat. Spread the remainder of the mozzarella cheese on top of the eggplant.

Before you add your sauce to the moussaka, fold in 3 beaten eggs into your béchamel sauce. Once the eggs are mixed in, pour the sauce evenly over the moussaka. Sprinkle some parmesan cheese and about half a cup of breadcrumbs over the moussaka.

Cook at 325 degrees for 1 hour.

Hope it made you drool.. because I did.. lol ;)

225 grams Butter (room temperature)

110 grams Caster sugar

275 grams Plain Flour

2 tsp Poppy Seeds

2 tsp Lemon zest

1 tbsp Lemon juice

Preheat oven 180°C.

Cream butter till soft. (You can either use a wooden spoon or a hand mixer)

Then beat in sugar until it's soft and light.

Add in lemon zest, lemon juice and poppy seeds, stir well.

Mix in plain flour and mould into desire shape.

* If you would like to use a cookie cutter, wrap the cookie dough with a cling wrap and store it in the fridge for 2 hours.

Bake them for approximately 20-25minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) in a 180 oven or till it turns golden brown.