Dish Of The Month: Veg And Cheese Bake

Published on: 16 Nov, 2018
Updated on: 17 Nov, 2018

by Hugh Coakley

Vegetarian dishes and a move away from meat with every meal is probably more on people’s minds than ever before.

It is just not seen as a quirky choice any more.

Being brought up in the 1950s and 60s the only vegetarian meals I can recall from then were either on toast or in a sandwich. Cheese and jam or mashed banana and sugar between two slices of white, buttered bread. Lovely.

Veg and Cheese Bake. Add cheese over the top of the cooked vegetables and bake until melted. Very easy to do and tasty.

Vegetarian meals were seen as an extreme choice, difficult to prepare and somehow, not as complete or as nutritious.

Times change.

One of my daughters is vegetarian and she has enlightened us with some lovely, tasty and simple meals, one of them being the Veg and Cheese Bake. This takes about 20 minutes to prepare and about an hour to bake, or less if you pre-cook the vegetables by boiling.

1 onion, cut into quarters

A brocolli and a cauliflower, cut into florets

2 large carrots and 2 medium potatoes, finely diced

Plus any other vegetables that you have to hand

6 cloves of garlic, peeled but whole

1/2 teaspoon (tsp) paprika, 1/2 tsp sage, 1/2 tsp black pepper, salt to taste

100 g of brie and 50g of Boursin or similar soft cheese

Rapeseed oil or whatever oil you prefer

Prepare the vegetables and put into a casserole dish. Drizzle the oil evenly over and sprinkle on the paprika, sage, pepper and salt.

Mix with a spoon or your fingers until all the vegetables are coated with the oil, spices and herbs.

Bake for about an hour in a fan oven at 200 deg C.

The aim is to soften the vegetables. So if you wish, you can shorten the baking time by boiling the veg for 5 minutes before putting in the casserole dish.

Once the vegetables are cooked, take it out of the oven and evenly distribute slices of brie and the Boursin over the top. You can make it more or less rich by reducing or increasing the amount of cheese you use.

Bake for another five minutes or until the cheese is melted and serve.

If there’s any left over, it’s equally good reheated the next day.

As they say nowadays, ‘Enjoy’.