Bean & Vegetable Gratin
A lovely vegetarian dish.
You can use all sorts of vegetables for this dish; like carrots, parsnips, swedes, turnips, canned french beans, leeks, onions. All these vegetables are in season throughout winter!
Preparation
Peel and cut the vegetables.
If using onions, heat a little oil in a frying pan and fry the onions until soft for around 2 minutes.
Add the vegetables and add enough water to cover. Boil until the vegetables are soft. You can check this by either tasting (beware it's hot!) or by pricking the biggest piece with a fork. If it goes in easily, the vegetables are cooked.
Add the butter beans and canned or frozen runner beans or French beans.
Heat everything through and leave it on the lowest setting.
In a separate sauce pan, melt the butter. Add the flour and keep stirring all the time for 1 minute.
Slowly add the milk while stirring constantly. The trick with making your own bechamel sauce is to keep stirring all the time!
Add half of the cheese and stir until it's melted.
Put the vegetables in an oven dish and top with the cheese sauce.
Now, put the rest of the cheese on top along with the bread crumbs.
Put under a hot grill for around 3-8 minutes. Check regularly and if it's nicely browned it's ready.
Bon appetite with your veggie meal!