Penne Pot Pie

For seven years now, I've been living with a carnivore. His favourite vegetable is chicken, he says. And refuses to eat anything that could have been green, once upon a time. Much worse than my 10 month old Little Monster who loves his vegetable-loaded khichri. To ensure this adult-sized brat eats, dinners in the Sharma-Das household are almost always meat-centric. Mercifully, DH does not do lunch. When you wake up at 11, lunch isn't quite lunch, right? The days I'm at home (which thanks to the LM, is ALL THE TIME these days), I make it a point to go 100% vegetarian. Greens, gourds, leaves, roots, stems, fruits..those are my mid-day indulgences.
Today's lunch was a Penne Pot Pie. Fresh and flavorful. With a mix of vegetables and brought together with a bechamel sauce. LM polished off his khichri while I demolished my single serve ramekin of goodness.

Serves 2
Ingredients:

For Pasta:
Penne- 1/2 cup
Water- 2 cups
Olive oil- few drops

For vegetable filling:
Aubergines- 2 small- cut into thin slices
Peas- 1/4 cup
Chilli- 1- chopped
Carrot- 1 small- thin juliennes
Green pepper- 1- chopped
Spring Onion- small bunch- chopped
Cauliflower- 3-4 florets- cut into smaller florets
Garlic- 3 pods, minced
Tomatoes- 2 medium- chopped

For Bechamel sauce:
Butter- 2 tbsp
Flour- 1 tbsp
Milk- 3/4 cup
Salt- to taste
Peppercorns- 4-5
Dried Rosemary- 1tsp

Process:
Boil pasta with a few drops of olive oil in water till al dente. Drain in a colander. Leave to cool.

In a non-stick pan, heat 1tsp oil. Once hot, arrange the aubergine slices without any overlap. Sprinkle salt. Cook on medium heat for about 2 minutes and flip. Allow to cook till they are soft but still hold the disc shape. Turn off heat. Remove. Reserve with the chopped capsicum and spring onion greens.

In the same pan, add the spring onions and garlic. Once the onion is wilted, add the chopped chilli. Follow that up with chopped tomatoes. Allow to sweat. Add the peas, carrot and cauliflower. Cook covered till almost done.

Add the drained pasta and toss. Turn off heat.

For the sauce, in a thick-bottomed pan, add the butter and flour to make a basic roux.

Add milk gradually and keep stirring to avoid the making of lumps.

To flavour and season, add crushed peppercorns, rosemary and salt.

Turn off the heat just as the sauce begins to thicken.

Preheat the oven at 220 degrees C.
Grease the inside of a ramekin. Arrange a layer of the cooked aubergine slices.

Add the penne-vegetable mix.

Pour the sauce over the vegetables. Add another layer of the aubergine slices.

Sprinkle the chopped capsicum and spring onion greens on top and cover with the reamining sauce.

Bake at 220C for 25 minutes or till the sauce has set and blisters appear on the top.

Cool on a wire rack

Serve warm.

Notes:
Penne can be replaced with any other pasta of choice. I prefer penne because of the ooziness it acquires while cooking.
The aubergines can also be added to the vegetable mix. I love the vegetable and therefore like to keep its sharpness distinct.
The flour roux can be made with lesser butter. I don't skimp on it because the rest of the dish hardly uses any fat, especially if cooked in a non-stick pan.