Baked Vegetable in White Sauce and Cheese, lotsa cheese!

You go to any general restaurant in India and amongst the tikkas and kormas and jalfrezis, you'd have a dish called "baked vegetable". now when you try this dish, it's got nothing Indian about it, why it doesn't even have no chilli powder in it :D It's my guess that the dish was put on the menus to cater for people who are not that into Indian cuisine.

anyways, my friends say, and being the humble guy I am, I agree, that it's as good as the ones you get at the restaurants, if not better :)

so let's get on with it :)

ingredients to serve 6 (in order of importance)

tasty/ cheddar cheese - 400 grams
cream cheese - 300 grams
butter - 50 grams
plain flour - 6 tablespoons
cream - 250 grams
milk - 150 ml
diced pineapple - 150 grams
pineapple juice - 100 ml
(you can get the two combined as diced pineapple in juice cans)
mushrooms - 100 grams
carrots - 1 large
corn kernel - 50 grams
cauliflower - 100 grams
(ok, these ingredients might serve 8 in fact :D)
other veggies that you can throw in - pumpkin, beans, potatoes
black pepper - 1/2 tablespoon (or as much as you like)
salt
rosemary, oregano are optional


grate the cheese and mix the flour with milk and cream. preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

melt the butter in a deep base 3 ltr oven proof dish on gas. turn the gas to medium and add the flour mix and whisk continuously to avoid lump formation. add the cream cheese after 2 mins and whisk whisk whisk for 3 more mins. add the veggies and after 2 more mins, add the pineapple pieces, juice, pepper, salt, herbs and 100 out of the 400 grams grated cheese and mix well. bake in oven with open lid for 30 mins. if you put potatoes, use the small chat potatoes (just discovered that's a global term!) or if using the bigger ones dice them about 2 cm^3 otherwise they might be a bit tough. take it out of the owen and put the remaining grated cheese on top and place it back in the oven so that the heating element is above the dish. bake for 10 mins and the cheese should be browned by now.

have it by itself or better still, serve with garlic bread, or lachcha paratha



please do me a favor and don't eat it with rice! hope you like it as much as i love it :p

cheers
gaurav