Eggplant Pastitsio & Slow Cooked Maple Pears

Eggplant Pastitsio
Women’s Weekly Complete Book of Modern Classics Pg 290

Slow Cooker Maple Sauced Pears
Betty Crocker Kitchens

Hi everyone,

You know I have read many times that failure is merely an opportunity for improvement or future success.  Well, let me tell you, this eggplant recipe has given me a major opportunity because it was a big flunk as you will see from the photos.  I was so excited to cook it because I love eggplant and the combination of it with a creamy white sauce and tomato flavoured lamb mince – yum!  You know what, the taste was great, however, the presentation really made us go into fits of laughter.  So let me tell you all about it.

Eggplant Pastitsio is a bit like an eggplant cake. The eggplants are sliced thinly (be careful not to cut them too thinly) and placed on a tray in the oven (with foil over them) until brown.  Well, there was my first flunk because mine did not brown – in fact a couple of pieces burnt around the edges.  If I was to do this again, I would fry the eggplant and not bake it.  The meat sauce and white sauce etc was easy enough to make and you could adjust this according to your taste – by that I mean add some extras to the white sauce like a teaspoon of mustard or a dash of worcestershire sauce.  It is important with this that the layers are not too wet because you assemble it in a cake tin and once cooked turn it out and slice like a cake.

The photo shows the eggplant “cake” just before it’s interior exploded out.  Below is the aftermath.

I served this up, regardless, with dressed salad greens and on the whole  it was given 7’s because of the taste.  Does anyone know of a trick to keep the lovely cake shape which is in my feature image??  Oh one other thing.  The recipe says to cook the pastitsio wrapped in foil for 30 minutes but frankly I found that this did not heat it through well enough so unless you cook, assemble and then bake immediately, you will need to cook it for an hour to get the temperature better suited for eating.

Now for the pears.  These were divine and how easy just to pop them in the slow cooker and let that do all the hard work.  The combination of the brown sugar maple syrup and orange with just a hint of ginger make this dessert a great standby for busy days.  Serve with a dollop of cream and a scoop of ice-cream after spooning over the sauce and everyone will be crying out for more.  10/10 for these little beauties.

I also tried my hand at gnocchi this week but more about that another time.  Let’s hope next week’s meal is a little more attractive in appearance.

From my table to yours with love.