Post 144: Layers

This morning was the monthly meeting, in a coffee shop, of the Crime Book Club I joined two months ago. I apologised.

As interested as I am, I did not feel comfortable in meeting with 5 or 6 people outside my usual 'bubble', around a table in a coffee shop without 1.5 metres between chairs. While the shop has tables set well apart, and only admits the regulated number of clients, last month there was no attempt to distance people around each table - no doubt assuming they are a social group. Even though there are no known active cases of Covid in South Australia, I don't feel like taking risks - or disregarding the rule. 


Instead, I spent most of the day making moussaka for tomorrow night. It's a bit of a risk. I make it frequently, but haven't made it for the kids. I'm hoping at least some of them take to it.

Last night I sliced and soaked the eggplant in salty water overnight. This morning I rinsed them, laid them out on a tea towel, rolled it up to dry them off, then spread them on trays in the oven for about 40 minutes.



While that was happening I made the ragu






and cooked half a dozen zucchini.


I usually stage this over a couple of days, but there was time today to do it all.

When the ragu was ready I layered the meat, eggplant and zucchini







then had a rest with a coffee and knitting.  The knitting seemed to resemble the moussaka - layered. I finished the dark lace layer I was working on last night before making the cheese sauce layer for the moussaka.







Finally came the grated kefalograviera cheese and the grated nutmeg.

It's now in the fridge ready to bake tomorrow.

Back to the knitting, I was not sure I would have enough of the light grey wool to finish, so I have shortened the second to last band by four rows. I'll kick myself if I end up with enough left to have avoided that decision.  I don't think it is impacting the design adversely.

Inevitably, sunset was yet another layer.