Going Greek? What about some delicious Moussaka

καλημέρα! How is your Greek? Mine is no better then everyone else's. For sure you can be sure (sure?) that everyone speaks a bit of Greek, since you find it everywhere. Just one example, or maybe two. The expression 'philosophy' comes from Greek words meaning 'the love of knowledge' (or similar). You remember Socrates? He said: "I know that I know nothing!" I'm still wondering, though, how he could new that. 
Anyway, wrong subject. Then there are terms like 'democracy', 'biology' and most probably we could go on and on and on and on ... but we don't want to.
At least I can eat Greek food and that is what matter now. So why not have some then?!
I can offer you some moussaka kind of dish today. 

What follows now, is moussaka the way that came to  my nind, when I was longing for some food using aubergines.


Ingredients: 
Olive oil
400 g minced meat (beef/pork)
1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
2 medium sized aubergines, in slices
400 g plum tomatoes or tinned tomatoes 
200 ml water
200 g Kritharaki (Greek rice noodles)
150 g yogurt
1 egg
250 g feta cheese
2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
Salt and pepper

Preparation:
Let's say, we begin by slightly frying the onions in the olive oil. How about that?
We go on by adding the meat and, well, eh, yes, give it the appropriate colour, as you may have guessed already.
Then we add the tinned tomatoes with some extra water, let things boil and then simmer for a while, as we finely season it with salt and pepper. Plan about 30 minutes for the simmering.
Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix the yogurt, the egg, the feta cheese and the finely chopped garlic. Season with salt and pepper as well. 
Have your oven-proof dish ready and grease it with a little bit of olive oil and then put in one layer of aubergine slices. On top of this simply bour your Kritharaki.

Then follows a tomato meat layer. In fact, just put on all of it. Go for another aubergine layer and then finish it off with the yogurt-cheese mix.

Have it in the pre-heated oven at 200°C for 45 minutes.
Then plate it up and ... enjoy this moussaka kind of dish ... Καλή όρεξη!

However, before I leave, I like to link things up a bit.
Since I found those Kritharakin in my pantry, this goes to the December Pantry Party at The Law Student's Cookbook.