Slow-cooked Ratatouille

I've always wanted to make layered ratatouille (like you see in the film). I also wanted to play with the slow-cooker.

Main ingredients (sliced):

     Aubergines

     Courgettes

     Onions

     Red peppers

Sauce:

     Chopped tomatoes in sauce (from a tin)

     Minced garlic

     Olive oil

     Salt (to taste)

     Pepper (to taste)

     Basil (dried, or diced leaves if fresh)

1. Mix the ingredients for the sauce together. Spread a spoonful on the bottom of the slow-cooker.

 2. Layer the vegetables along the bottom.

 3. Spread sauce over the vegetables. Repeat until you run out of vegetables or sauce.

4. Cook over low heat for 10-12 hours.

Tada!

Eggless Lemon Yoghurt Cake

I'm not a very good baker, but I had to use up lemons and yoghurt, and I felt like something sweet. Unfortunately, I also lacked eggs. Thus:

Lemon Yoghurt Cake
Ingredients:
  1.5 cups of flour
  1 tsp baking soda
  1.5 cups yoghurt
  0.5 cup granulated sugar
  2 lemons worth of juice + zest

Preheat the oven to 180 degree C (gas mark 4).

Mix flour, baking soda, and sugar. Add in lemon juice and lemon zest (leave a little aside for the topping) and mix well. Slowly add in the yoghurt until blended.

Pour into a greased cake pan. Bake for ~30 minutes, or until a fork comes out clean

Once cool, add icing and sprinkle with lemon zest.


Icing
  1 tbsp chocolate powder
  2 tbsp melted butter
  sugar to taste (I used 1 tbsp)

Mix ingredients together and spread over cake while butter is still warm.

Veggie Lasagna

As a birthday treat to myself, I decided to make vegetable lasagna, loosely based off a recipe from BBC GoodFood.

Ingredients (makes 2 pans)
     2 tbsp olive oil
     1 red onion, sliced
     1 large aubergine, sliced flat
     2 courgettes, sliced flat
     3 assorted bell peppers, sliced into strips
     800g chopped tomatos in sauce (from a tin)
     400g lasagne sheets (fresh or half-cooked)
     300g bechamel sauce
     200g mozzarella, grated or sliced thin
     50g parmesan, grated or sliced thin

Before starting: Saute the onion, aubergines, and courgettes separately (if you want to layer it) or together (to save time).

Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Grease baking trays with oil.

Place a layer (or several) of vegetables, ladle in tomato sauce. Add a layer of lasagna, then bechamel sauce. Repeat until both pans are full (any excess ingredients can be saved and tossed in a pot with pasta). Top with mozzarella and parmesan.

Bake for 40 minutes.

A sprinkle of parsley really spruces it up