B for Baked Vegetables

I love cooking, I really do, but sometimes when I am too tired after a workday I feel like taking a shortcut to cooking. Again, I am a huge foodie, but those foodie tendencies are more inclined towards non vegetarian food or desserts. I am not a fan of vegetables in general and do not eat most vegetables. The ones I do eat, I need to make them more interesting once in a while to keep myself interested. Out of these 2 proclivities was born the idea of baked vegetables.

This is an – almost – healthy dish with lots of vegetable and is easy to make at home. Its delicious to eat and brings a twist to boring, everyday vegetables.

Which Cuisine?

This is essentially an Italian dish. However, I have never been to Italy and don’t really have a connection per se. Italian is simply a cuisine I love and Italy is a country on my bucket list. In fact, had in not been for the pandemic, I would have had visited Italy last October. Be that as it may, here goes my simple but lovely recipe for baked vegetables.

Ingredients:

Carrot – 1 medium, chopped

French Beans – 100 gms., chopped

Peas – ½ cup

Cauliflower – ½ of a medium sized, diced/cut into half florets

Potato – 1, diced

Garlic – 4/5 cloves, chopped

Flour – 1 tbsp.

Milk – 2 cups

Salt – to taste

Pepper – 1 tsp.

Red chilli powder – 1 tsp.

Oregano powder – 2 tsp.

Thyme powder – 1 tsp.

Cheese – 1.5 cup, grated

Butter – as required

Oil – 2 tsp.

Method:

1. Boil the chopped carrots, french beans, peas, potato and cauliflower with a pinch of salt in a saucepan till they are about ¾ cooked; al-dente. Drain them once done.
2. Meanwhile, let’s prepare the white sauce which brings the whole dish together.
   1. For the white sauce, heat 2 tsp. oil in a frying pan. Add chopped garlic and sauté till you get the nice fried garlic smell. Then add a knob of butter (~1tbsp.).
   1. Once the butter melts, add the flour and keep mixing so that it doesn’t form lumps.
   1. Now add in the milk and keep sauteing to avoid lumps.
   1. Once the sauce starts to thicken, add in salt, pepper and red chilli powder, thyme and oregano and mix.
   1. Add ¼ cup cheese and mix.
   1. Adjust taste and take it off the heat.
3. Grease a baking tray with butter. Preheat oven for 5 minutes at 180 °C.
4. Add half of the boiled veggies to the baking tray like a layer. Ladle the white sauce over the veggies. Sprinkle half the grated cheese. Repeat for a second layer.
5. Bake the entire thing for 15 minutes, making sure the cheese has melted and become slightly golden brown.
6. Garnish with red chilli flakes and oregano. Baked vegetables is ready!

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This may sound like a lot of steps but I just broke it down for ease of understanding. It really is quite simple to make and is pretty fast. Please try out and let me know how it turns out!

This post was written for Blogchatter A2Z challenge; Day 2 – Letter “B”.