This weekend I was recklessly and wildly extravagent.  I spent all of Sunday afternoon pottering around between the kitchen and the living room, making my favourite moussaka.

It’s easy to forget how sensual and soothing cooking is when you get caught up in fraught weeknight cookery.  I’ve been trapped in a rut many a time, feeling incipient dread at having to bang out yet another meal and wondering when spending time in my kitchen stopped being fun.  A weekend of gentle and—dare I say it—lazy cookery, reconnecting with food, works wonders to restore your culinary soul.

Hear the shrrrk of a seriously sharp knife as it bites into the onion.  The soft thunk as it hits the board.  Watch ice-white cubes of onion tumble away.  It’s worth lingering over each glide of your knife and falling into a slow and steady rhythm.  A soothing rhythm to clear the mind.

Crush dried oregano between your fingertips and let the fragrant mossy-green leaves fall into the sauce, their oils warmed and eager to meld with the rest of the ingredients.  Glug in some spicy red wine and contemplate having a glass for yourself.

Let the sauce bubble away quietly on the burner and take the gift of time that it has given you.  This is slow food.  There’s time to do other things; to watch yet another episode of Peppa Pig, to draw pictures or to wait for dark to fall and stand in the window to watch fireworks light up the sky.

Spicy and sweet-savoury aromas fill the house, drawing you back to the kitchen to stir the pan until the thick drag of the spoon through the unctuous red sauce, followed by an appreciative taste, tells you that the sauce is ready.

Slice the inky aubergines, peel the potatoes; introduce them both to some heat.  There’s no rush, just good food.  Layer the smoky roasted aubergines in your dish, nestle sliced potato on top, spoon over the sauce—try to resist sneaking too many spoonfuls, difficult, I know—and layer it all up.  Spoon over the voluptuously thick topping and finally grate some Parmesan over the top.  Not too much, just enough to create a gorgeous burnished top when you slide the dish into the oven.

And with that, you’re done.  More time to spend however you wish.  Potter around the house picking up books and toys, put together a salad, whatever.  Just enjoy all the wonderful smells coming from the kitchen as the oven does its job.

When you finally sink your fork through all those wonderful and lovingly created layers, you’ll smile.  Taste all those amazing flavours, melded together through long, slow cooking, relax and enjoy.  By the end of your plateful, you’ll feel restored, energised and ready to face another week in the kitchen.

Moussaka

Start off with the sauce. This will need three hours of long, slow cooking to produce rich flavours. It can be made the day before (or indeed frozen well in advance) and re-heated when you want to assemble the moussaka.

The topping is non-traditional, but it works beautifully and keeps the dish from becoming too rich.

For the lamb sauce:

• 2 medium onion, chopped finely
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 400g lean lamb mince
• 175g mushrooms, sliced thickly
• 125ml red wine
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon (you may want to add more at the end of cooking)
• pinch ground cloves
• 400g tin chopped tomatoes
• 500ml carton passata (sieved tomatoes)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• salt & pepper

For the vegetable layers:

• 1 large aubergine (or two, if you particularly like aubergine)
• olive oil spray
• salt & pepper
• 400g potatoes (Maris Piper are good)

For the topping:

• 1 large egg
• 100 g low-fat soft cheese
• 150 g 0% fat Greek yoghurt
• pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
• salt & pepper
• 10g Parmesan cheese, grated

Brown lamb and onions together for 5-6 minutes. Add garlic, cinnamon, cloves and oregano. Cook further 1 minute until fragrant. Add mushrooms and cook for 2 minutes.

Pour over tomato products and wine. Bring to the boil, reduce the heat to lowest possible and leave to simmer uncovered for about three hours. Stir occasionally, and if getting too dry then pour over a half-kettle of recently boiled water and continue cooking.  (You can cook the sauce for less time if you’d like, but I love how rich it becomes after long and slow cooking.)

When ready the sauce should be thick, but still flow off a wooden spoon, and bursting with flavour. Season to taste with salt and pepper and add some more ground cinnamon if you think it needs it.

For the aubergines, preheat the oven to 220C. Cut the aubergine into thin slices lengthways.  Spray first side with olive oil spray (or, if not dieting, brush with extra virgin olive oil) and season. Flip prepared slices onto baking sheet and repeat process with the virgin side.  Roast for about 15 minutes, turning and re-spraying as necessary, until tender and golden. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Turn oven down to Gas Mark 5 / 190°C/ 375°F.

Peel and cut potatoes into slices and par-boil in salted water for about 5 minutes until starting to become tender. Drain and rinse with cold water. Spread out on a tray to cool down until they can be handled easily.

Spray an 8″ square baking dish with olive oil spray (or just plain old olive oil) and arrange half the aubergine slices over the bottom. On top of this arrange half the potato slices.

Spoon over all the meat sauce and spread evenly.

Lay the remaining potato slices over the meat and follow this with the rest of the aubergine. It should all fit quite neatly into the dish.

In a medium bowl, beat the topping ingredients—apart from the Parmesan—together. Spoon carefully over the aubergine. If you scrape the bowl well, then you’ll have exactly the right amount.  Sprinkle over the Parmesan.

Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes. Cool for at least 15 minutes before slicing. I actually think that this is much better served at room temperature the next day but Dave loves it piping hot from the oven.  Each to their own!