Lamb, aubergine, tomato and potato bake

It's been a tough year for us allotmenteers. The lack of rain and extreme heat has made growing food very hard work. You worry about your crops dying through lack of watering but you go up to the allotment to do some work and within no time at all you're wilting yourself in the hear.

Usually we get a good crop of raspberries through the autumn and often I have picked the last of the raspberries in early November. This year there's no chance of this as I managed to pick just six raspberries. All the other canes had died. Thankfully I was able to come away with a decent selection of vegetables which I was able to incorporate into a meal. I already had lamb mince defrosting for dinner so the tomatoes, courgettes, onions and potatoes were perfect partners to this. Added to this was a couple of carrots I had in the fridge plus an aubergine I had bought to go originally with the lamb.

Serves 4

Equipment: Large frying pan, ovenproof dish

Ingredients

1 Aubergine, sliced

Olive oil

500g Lamb mince

1 Onion, chopped

2 Courgettes, chopped

2 Carrots, chopped

500g Ripe tomatoes

Basil leaves, torned

Black pepper

2 Potatoes, sliced thinly

Cheese, grated

Method

1. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/Gas mark 6.

2. Heat the oil in the frying pan and sauté the aubergines until they are browned on both side. Put to one side on some kitchen paper to drain off some of the oil.

3. Fry the mince until it has coloured and then add the onion, courgettes and carrots. Add some more oil if necessary and fry until the onion has softened.

4. Add in the tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes start to soften and can be crushed to release their juices.

5. Stir in the basil and black pepper.

6. In the oven proof dish put a layer of the aubergines. On top put half of the lamb mixture and cover with the remaining aubergines. On top of this put the rest of the lamb mixture.

7. Cover with the potato slices and then sprinkle over the grated cheese.

8. Cook for 20 minutes until the cheese has melted and the potatoes has softened.