Vegetarian Moussaka

First off, before I get to the vegetarian moussaka I made last night, I want to send a quick shout-out to one of my oldest friends, Wendy Lawrence (and no, Wendy, I didn't just call you old, I meant that figuratively).  Wendy passed along a "Stylish Blogger Award" to me.  I believe the main reason she chose my blog is some sort of ironic commentary knowing that I'm hardly stylish.  However, I will happily accept the award, chiefly because I can now tell people I write an award winning blog.  To truly accept it, I'm supposed to reveal 7 things about myself and then pass along the award to 10 others.  I will do that later this week, but alas, time is short right now with the dissertation looming and I want to get to cooking.  But for anyone with kids, or anyone who knows a kid, or anyone who once was a kid, Wendy writes a really fantastic blog all about children's books and reading.  Her blog is actually worthy of being considered award winning and I highly recommend everyone check it out: http://kidlitblog.wordpress.com/

Onto the food: Last night, I made a vegetarian moussaka.  Moussaka is a dish I absolutely love, though it has been years since I've had it.  This is probably because I used to love going to the Great Greek in Los Angeles and ordering the dish and I haven't found many places since then that I thought could do it justice.  That said, this marks my first venture of trying to make it myself.  This recipe comes from the latest issue of Cooking Light.  

This moussaka has basically three components: broiled eggplant, the filling, and a bechamel sauce.  The most time consuming portion of the dish is the filling, which is typically made with some sort of ground meat, but as a meat substitute, this recipe called for bulgur (which is made from wheat).  To make the filling, first I prepared all the ingredients, which included 2 cups diced onion, 4 chopped garlic cloves (though I used 6, I always go with more because I love it so much), a half cup of bulgur, some cinnamon, allspice, and ground cloves, 2 cups of vegetable broth, and then chopped oregano:

 

To make the filling, first you saute the onions in hot olive oil for about 8 minutes, which will give them a nice color:

To this, add the garlic and cook for another minute:

Add the bulgur and cook for another 3 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent anything from burning.  Then add the spices and cook for another minute:

Add the broth and oregano, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes until it's thickened up nicely: 

For the eggplant, slice 3 of them into 1 inch rounds and put them on a baking sheet (removing the skin first).  Brush some olive oil on them and broil on high for about 5 minutes per side (or until they're brown):

 Here they are after broiling (this is the first batch, you'll have to do this in two rounds):

Finally, for the bechamel sauce, you need 1 tablespoon of butter, 2 tablespoons of flour, 1 cup of milk, an egg, and some cheese (it called for 2 tablespoons, but again, I put in a bit more):

To make the sauce, melt the butter in a sauce pan and then whisk in the flour until it is thoroughly combined (about 2 minutes).  Slowly add the milk and bring it to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 5 minutes.  It should get thick by the end of that time.  Once it has thickened, stir in the cheese and remove from the heat.  Let it cool slightly then beat in the egg.  It should look something like this:

Now, for the big finish, layer half the eggplant in a dish then spread the filling on top of it.  Layer the rest of the eggplant on top of the filling so that you get something that looks like this:

Pour the bechamel sauce over the whole thing and pop it in the oven (350 degrees).  Here is mine going in:

After 45 minutes, the recipe suggests turning up the oven temp to 475 to brown the top of the moussaka.  At this point, I was hungry and ready for this to be done so I instead just turned the broiler back on to hurry the task along.  I think it worked just fine.  Here it is coming out of the oven:

 And here's my slice of it:

I think this moussaka turned out really well, although it didn't taste quite like others I have eaten.  I imagine this is largely due to the lack of meat in the dish.  However, I think the bulgur worked admirably as a meat substitute.  If anything, I think the dish was perhaps a little under seasoned and so if I make this again, I think I would season a bit more aggressively to kick it up a little bit more.  Still, I would definitely recommend this to anyone who's looking for a vegetarian dish to try out.  And I should know: I'm an award winning blogger.