What an exciting weekend!

After 5 years of begging, the hubby finally gave in and let me get some ex-battery hens 🙂

We have adopted 3 from Lucky Hens Rescue in Wigan. These good and incredibly kind hearted folks are dedicated to rescuing ex-battery hens and finding them good retirement homes. They’ve been unbelievably busy after the devastating M62 crash so I was very grateful that they had the time to talk to me on Saturday and give me lots of tips and advice on how to look after my newly acquired chooks.

We’ve only had “Lady Di”, “Lizzie” and “Kate” for a day and a half, but we are already in love with them 🙂 Not to mention already plotting on how to further extend the run…

Anyhow, all that chicken rescuing makes one hungry! Especially after planting plants, painting coops and building runs in torrential rain storms. So what better way to warm up and recover than to dig into a nice plateful of my veggie layer bake? (and yes it contains courgette! My second courgette recipe after my tasty salad).

Veggie layer bake reecipe:

Ingredients

1 x onion 1 x cup water ½ x red pepper 1 x tsp sugar 1 x courgette 1 x cup bread crumbs 1 x leek 1 x tsp ground black pepper 1 x stick celery 1 x tsp dried basil 2 x tbsp. tomato puree Eazy Cheeze sauce (as per my recipe here)

Method:

Firstly, make up a batch of Eazy Cheeze sauce as per my recipe that I used for my Ultimate Nachos.

Secondly, create the veggie tomato sauce. Chop and fry the onion in a little oil until beginning to soften. Then chop the pepper and celery and add to the onion and fry for a further 5 mins. Add the tomato puree and stir until mixed. Next, add the black pepper, sugar and basil before stirring in the water. Heat until bubbling, then take off the hob.

Next, prepare the leeks and courgette. Slice the courgette into thin slices using a potato peeler.

For the leeks, chop off the ends and slice down one side of the stalk. You should be able to peel the layers off in sheets. You will need to steam the leeks for a few minutes until they start to go soft, otherwise they will be too chewy in the bake. (Do not steam the courgette or else it will turn to mush!)

In a baking dish, add a layer of the tomato sauce. Then top with some courgette slices. Next add some cheeze sauce and top with some leek sheets, then add another layer of tomato sauce and keep layering up until you either run out of ingredients or reach the top of the dish. Ideally you want the top layer to be cheeze sauce.

Finally, sprinkle the breadcrumbs over the top of the bake and put in the oven at 180oC for 45 mins (more or less depending on the size / height of the dish you have used). If the top starts to brown too fast, cover with a piece of tin foil.

When done, the bake should be bubbling and you should have no trouble cutting through the leeks.

We had ours with a split pea “shish kebab” and a side salad. Yum yum!

Flash-Gordonette…x