Veggie cheesy pasta bake

This is neither a quick nor necessarily a frugal meal (depending on what you put in it) but it is easy to make, and it’s good for using up odds and ends from the vegetable drawer. Take care about what you put into it, though, it’s not supposed to be a culinary dustbin. Make sure the veggies you use go well with each other. Apart from that small consideration, there’s loads of things you can put into this – peppers, mushrooms, etc.

For extra flavour, roast your vegetables before adding them. I cheated and sautéed mine before roasting to speed up the cooking time.

Ingredients

(this is what I used to make the dish in the photo)

• A few handfuls of penne
• A slice of pumpkin
• About 8 asparagus spears
• 1 small red onion, sliced
• ½ a leek, washed and sliced
• A handful of cherry tomatoes, halved
• Cheese sauce

If you’re not sure how to make cheese sauce you can find my recipe on my white sauce page.

Method

Chop and roast the veggies.

Meanwhile get the pasta into boiling, lightly salted water.

Now make the cheese sauce.

Drain the pasta when ready. Add the roasted veggies, and stir in the cheese sauce.

Put the pasta, veggie, cheese mixture into a suitable dish and bake in the oven till it’s nice and golden on top. (About 20 minutes.)

Serve with a nice crisp salad, if wanted.

For those of you who like more precise recipes, the Reader’s Digest website has a good one plus a nice photo of the finished dish [obsolete link removed, Feb 2014]. They call theirs a roasted vegetable and pasta bake, and it’s very similar to the one I made.