About the Recipe
A yummy pasta bake is another great meal to make a large quantity of in advance for future dinners. And a perfect way to use up the vegetables that now starting to not look their best. The wholemeal fusilli or penne from Fill Them Up is brilliant for this pasta bake.
Ingredients
Choose 1 or more from cabbage, onion, carrots, beetroot (turns it a beautiful colour), radish, tomatoes, cauliflower, peas, sweetcorn, kale, spinach, runner beans, green beans, peppers, butternut squash.
1 onion
1 Garlic clove
1 inch root ginger (optional)
200-250g Wholewheat Fussili or pennette pasta (or double it for big batch cooking)
For the sauce:
75g vegan margarine
75g plain white flour
1 pint oat milk (prewarmed)
pinch of ground nutmeg
pinch ground black pepper
Vegan cheese or normal cheese for topping
Preparation
1. I start by prepping whatever veg I have to hand pretty much any veg you can get your hands on can go in!
2. Ideally get your pieces of veg cut or torn into roughly the same size as the penne or fusilli. Any hard root veg should be boiled or steamed to soften it up, including green beans or runner beans. Once chopped they'll take about 5 to 10 minutes to soften.
3. If I use onion or garlic or root ginger chop it small and I'd recommend giving it a little fry off in a small amount of oil, a low heat for 10 minutes is good.
4. For any leaves, like Kale or spinach or sweetcorn (not on the cob!) or peas, they don't need to be cooked first and can go straight into your big oven dish.
5. Once all the veg is prepped pile it in to the oven dish and leave for now.
Then boil a big pan of water for the pasta about 2 litres. For 1 large oven dish about 200 to 250g pasta is good, serves 4 good helpings. Or double up to 400g of pasta and make 2! You'll need to put the pasta in to cook as soon as the water comes to a boil, then time it for 8 to 10 minutes. Drain the water once cooked and add the pasta to your veg in the oven dish.
6. I love to make a white sauce from scratch, it's so easy, especially once you've done it a few times. Randomly I was taught to make it by using chopsticks to whisk the sauce! However, a flat bottom whisk or a wooden spoon or spatula will work fine.
For lots of sauce: melt vegan margarine into a medium size pan over a low/medium heat, then once melted tip in the flour, stir it like mad to combine the two ingredients. Have pre-warmed 1 pint of oat milk and pour it into the pan in one go and again whisk like crazy! It will seem lumpy to begin with, but keep stirring on a low/medium heat and it will go smooth. I love to add in ground nutmeg and some ground black pepper.
7. Lastly, once you've let the flour cook off in the white sauce and are happy with the consistency (add more oat milk a little at a time if it gets too thick, I always end up adding more), then pour the sauce over the veg and pasta.
Give it a stir-up to combine, sprinkle vegan cheese or dairy cheese over the top and put it in the oven for 30 minutes at 180 degrees.
Author
This great recipe is shared by lovely Rowan who is very enthusiastic about all things environmentally friendly and is a busy mom too:
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