Perhaps another - though knee weekening Moussaka

Oh my. My knees gave out tonight. God I looked completely stupid lying on the floor with hamburger all over my face. Nevertheless, I found a little recipe for Low Carb Moussaka and altered it only because I was too lazy to read the rest of the recipe:

1 lb. of hamburger layered in an 8 by 8 casserole. Add chopped onion. You can saute, but I actually perfered a little crunch. Bake an entire eggplant, sliced and swipped with a little olive oil. Layer and bake for 30 minutes. Put over top of the hamburger casserole and onion, then add 1/4 cup of tomato sauce, 1 cup of cream, 1/4 cup of parmesan, and three eggs, 1 tsp. of cinnamon, 1 tsp. of nutmeg, pepper, salt, and what else? How bout a glass of something? Cheers.

PEI Bacon Cheddar Potato Pie

This was a perfect dish to serve for my Easter Brunch. It's impressive looking and tastes as delicious. I was asked for this recipe from many of my guests. It may seem intimidating, but is actually quite easy. You'll need a deeper casserole dish or even a pie plate would be fine.  I've made just a few adjustments from the original recipe, like, no salt!  The bacon I find is salty enough, but adding pepper is perfect.

An important note:  please don't line your potato slices as I did around the edges.  This made the pie, while still lovely and delicious, a little harder to hold its shape when serving.  I've made the adjustment in the 

 Preheat oven to 325 degrees 

1 pound bacon - depending on the size of round casserole dish you are using, you may need more.

4 cups strong cheddar cheese

6 large potatoes, scrubbed clean but left unpeeled, sliced into 1/4 inch rounds

1-2 onions, sliced or diced

1/2 tbsp. garlic powder or 4 cloves garlic, minced

pepper

Line a round casserole dish with bacon slices, arranging them in a radial pattern and starting with one end of bacon in the center of the pan and the other end draped over the edge.

When the entire surface of the casserole has been covered, sprinkle with pepper, squish the center of the bacon down, then add a layer of sliced potatoes, over lapping to cover the bottom. Sprinkle with grated cheddar cheese and add slices of onion and some garlic. Add some more pepper and repeat layers until they are slightly above the top of the pan. Fold the bacon, one slice at a time up and over the potato mound into the center so it looks kind of like a pinwheel or a pouch. Press down and cover with a lid. Now here's the great part. You bake this tart for 3 hours at 325 degrees. Once it's done, take off the lid and let it cool for a while, then carefully put a plate over the top and turn the tart over onto the plate. It will look so cool. It will be a little greasy too so just sop it up with some paper towels and turn out onto another beautiful plate - surround with orange slices and parsley if you like!. You can reheat later on, or serve room temperature.

Low Carb Shepherd's Pie

It's raining tonight here in B.C., so I was trying to think of something delicious and nutritious to enjoy with my glass of Merlot. Truth be told, I have a weakness for all things burger. In fact, just recently after viewing David Hasselhoff's drunken' lip lock with his hamburger, I actually thought to myself...God that burger looks good. I could not have cared less that he was lying on his floor shirtless and slobbering incoherent grunts....David aside; I just wanted to have what he was having, minus the you tube demonstration of course. So tonight, rather than a D.H. burger, I think that I will enjoy a low carb Shepherd's Pie. How do you make it and why the low carb? After so much kerfuffle in the media and so forth with respect to low carb diets, it has now been revealed, albeit reluctantly, that they actually might be good for you. I've tried every diet on the universe, and seem to come out of this one, happy and well fed. So here is what I made tonight:

Boil two heads of medium sized cauliflower in a nice big pot of water. In a separate pan, fry up about 8 slices of bacon, but cut them up into little cubes first. Also add 4 stalks of chopped up celery, and chop up and add an onion. Fry all over a medium heat until cooked and softened. Add hamburger and cook until all the pink has gone. Add some salt and pepper, and sage if you like too. Drain the hamburger and set aside for a bit. In the meanwhile, whip up four egg whites and blend until they are nice and thick like whip cream. When the cauliflower is done, drain the water and add to the egg whites with 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. Salt and pepper. Add 1 egg and some mushroom soup, 1/2 can without water will be fine to the hamburger mixture then o a butter up casserole dish and top with cauliflower mixture. Sprinkle with a bit more cheese and more pepper. Put in the oven at 400 degrees for 20-30 minutes.

Pear Cheese Strata

I made this strata yesterday afternoon for friends and it was "fine." I say fine, because I think that it has enormous potential and I plan on making it again but with some tweaking. I got this recipe from the cookbook, Wine, Food, & Friends. It's funny, but when a recipe is in a cookbook, you expect it to be a knockout. Like I said, this recipe is fine and simple. I think that more refined tastes might enjoy this as is...but being from the burbs and having enjoyed mucho take-out and food fare cuisine, my palette expects a little more chemically enhanced pow! I think after reading that sentence I am in dire need of a simple French cooking course where everything is sensuously flavored and coddled to bring out the best that any recpe has to offer. Oh well, back to the basics. Rather than just adding Gouda cheese as this recipe suggested, I added goat cheese to it as well. I also tried some of this strata later on with a bit of ham and it tasted better. Also, I didn't have white bread so I baked some in my handy dandy 13 year old bread maker. The strata has an interesting suggestion to add white wine to the bread and I'd like to keep this suggestion. I also think that I will slice the bread really thin next time. I have hope for this recipe and I will definately try it again.

Creamy Corn Souffle/Casserole

It's hard to decide which to call this delicious mixture of baked corn and cheese so I will call it both a casserole and a souffle. It's a casserole because it's baked in a nice big casserole dish, and I will also deem it a souffle simply for it's gorgeousness and for it's luscious texture. Simply add four tins of cream of corn into a bowl and mix with two cups of strong cheddar cheese, 3 eggs, 1 cup of flour, 1 small onion, salt and pepper and pour it into a buttered casserole and bake at 350 degrees for at least one hour, or until the centre of the casserole is firm. Let cool a little and slice into squares. You will want to eat this for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!