Last night was moussaka, loosely based on this recipe. Things are pretty much always loosely based on recipes here, depending on what we have and what we feel like eating.

I suspect adding a layer of spinach into the dish in between the meat and the aubergine is not authentic, but we had it, and it worked, so what the hell. I couldn’t be bothered to zest a lemon either – there was a half lemming clingfilmed in the fridge, so I chopped it into chunks and hurled it in, then fished it out again when the meat was cooked. We add some cumin too.

You’ll also note the celery and carrot – I usually start any sort of meat casserole-y thing with some diced veg like that, sometimes a courgette too if there’s one about. Sauté them down, and they add a richness and sweetness to the proceedings.

perlmonger got to do the aubergine frying for a change, and I supervised watched.