Baked Vegetables and Macaroni

This is for my friend Shobhana who wanted a simple baked pasta recipe - or else I am too lazy to compose a blogpost and publish it:) This was created by reading a few classic "Macaroni and Cheese" recipes and "Baked Vegetables" recipes - I simply married the two.

I have divided this recipe into 3 parts for convenience sake (Shobs, very much like me, is not much of a cook - so this break-up is helpful)

A. The Macaroni - I bought durum-wheat elbow shaped macaroni and boiled around 1 cup of it in salt water till al dente (keep checking while stirring - we dont want it to get too soft, since it will also go through the baking cycle). Then rinse it out with cold water and strain it and keep it aside - you can drizzle a bit of oil to prevent it from sticking).

B. The Vegetables - I chopped around 2 cups of assorted vegetables (red, green and yellow bellpeppers, carrots, french beans, cauliflower or you can use broccoli, button mushrooms and red spanish onions). Separately, I boiled a little bit of sweet corn niblets and green peas in water till just cooked. For cooking the vegetables, in 1 tbsp of olive oil, saute the veggies along with 1 tsp of minced garlic. I added the bellpeppers at the end, since I like them crisp. Mix these veggies with the boiled macaroni and keep aside.

C. The White Sauce (or the bechamel sauce) - In about 1 tbsp of butter or margarine, saute some finely chopped onions (about 1/2 cup). Once the onions have caramelized, add 2 tbsp of all-purpose flour or maida and fry gently till it becomes brown. Take care not to over-brown it since it burns very fast. Then add 2 cups of milk and stir so remove any big lumps of flour. While the sauce simmers, add salt and pepper to your taste and a dash of dry mustard powder and Worchestershire sause. If cholesterol is not an issue for you, crumble some Cheddar cheese in the bubbly sauce. If the sauce becomes too thick, you can add some extra milk.

These 3 things are then simply dumped together to create our dish. Grease a large baking dish (I used a deep porcelain baking dish), and put the veggies-macaroni mixture in it. I've seen cooks who prefer to layer the veggies and macaroni - I was in too much of a hurry to do that:) Then simply pour the thick creamy-cheesy white sauce on top to swamp our colorful vegetables. Sprinkle some bread crumbs on top, along with some grated cheese and decorate with halved cherry tomatoes and olives. Bake the dish uncovered at 200 C for 30 mins. If the crust becomes too brown - you can loosely cover the dish with some aluminium foil.

This healthy and colorful dish is enough for a family of four - myself and hubby had it for lunch as well the next day and we enjoyed every bit of ut:) If you are health conscious, you can simply avoid adding any cheese or alter the amount accordingly.

I would like to read your comment and suggestions on this post. I am not much of a photographer as you can see from these pics, but I am still learning. Also since since this just my 2nd blogpost, I am also learning "blogging":)