Recipe: Vegetable Pasta Bake

I looking cooking and making myself and others food from scratch. However, I don't always find the time to make home-cooked meals and so it's really nice when I have the time to make something. One of my favourite things to cook is Vegetable Pasta Bake because it is a bit healthier than other dishes, yet is still really delicious and I thought that I would share the recipe I use.

The things that you will need for this dish are:

- Pasta

- A selection of vegetables

- Grated cheese

For the sauce:

- 50g of butter

- 50g of flour

- 500ml of milk

- 150g grated cheese

This is a fairly simple dish and can be made using a range of different vegetables. The vegetables that I usually put into the dish are: carrot, parsnip, cauliflower, broccoli, onion and potato but you can use any of your favourite vegetables. 

Being a pasta bake, it is quite important that you have some pasta. I just use some ready made pasta from Morrisons.

1. Firstly, you need to take all of the vegetables that you are using and peel them if necessary and then slice them up, as shown above. 

2. Then once the vegetables have been peeled, you need to put all of them into a large saucepan full of water and allow them to simmer on a medium heat. Add a pinch of salt to enhance their flavour and you should aim to cook the vegetables until they are soft.

3. Meanwhile, in another saucepan full of water, around one cupful of pasta per person should be cooked on a medium heat. Again, you should aim to cook the pasta until it is soft, which will be about 10 minutes after the water is boiled. 

4. Once the pasta is cooked, drain the pasta and place it into a heatproof dish. Don't worry if at this point the vegetables are not yet cooked, because in the meantime the cheese sauce can be made. 

5. To make the cheese sauce you are going to need 150g of cheese, which I have brought already grated and 50g of milk, flour and butter. 

6. Using the same saucepan as the pasta was in, add the milk and return the saucepan to the medium heat. Then stir in the flour and butter and you should start to get a thicker consistency forming. Add the cheese, whilst continuing to stir the mixture. At this point you could taste the sauce and if necessary add more cheese, or if the sauce is too thick add more milk or butter. 

7. Once all of the ingredients have been mixed together, and you are happy with the way it tastes, the sauce should look like the image above. Remember to keep stirring the mixture so that it doesn't separate. 

8. Next, pour the cheese sauce into the heatproof dish alongside the pasta and mix the two together. 

9. By this time, the vegetables should be cooked, so you need to drain the water away from the saucepan and pour these into the heatproof dish aswell. 

10. It is important to then stir together the pasta, vegetables and sauce so that they are all evenly coated. The dish then needs to be put into the oven for about 15 minutes at 180 degrees.

11. After 15 minutes, take the dish out of the oven and add a layer of grated cheese to the top of the dish. Return the dish to the oven for a further 5 minutes to allow the cheese to melt. 

12. Take the dish out of the oven and serve.

I find this dish is as delicious cold as it is hot so if you find that you have made too much, pop it in the fridge and it can be enjoyed as part of an accompanying side dish or as a snack.