Vegetarian Pastitsio
We got a lovely big bunch of silverbeet in this week’s Food Connect box that I wanted to use up while it was still fresh. I also had a couple zucchini in the fridge from last week. A quick Google search on the bus home from work (thank you iPhone!) led me to this: Vegetarian Pastitsio. It’s a baked pasta dish with sauteed silverbeet, zucchini, and garlic topped with a nummy bechamel sauce. We had nearly all the ingredients already. “This dish is perfect comfort food during the colder months,” Peter blogged. Done and done!

The recipe isn’t terribly exact, but it was easy enough to follow. I separated the silverbeet stalks from the leaves and cooked the stalks first, reckoning they’d take a little longer. Then I threw in the zucchini, and then the chopped up leaves. I used two gloves of garlic, a pinch of dried chilli flakes, and salt and pepper to taste. (If you like a lot of garlic, maybe go an extra clove. I wish I did.) I used penne for the pasta, and I just eyeballed how much to cook. (It was probably about 400g or so.) The pasta and greens went into my baking dish along with a couple scoops of Greek yoghurt (I didn’t bother draining it), a beaten egg, some freshly ground nutmeg, and a scattering of cheese. While that was cooling, I made the bechamel and loaded that up with more nutmeg and cheese. The bechamel went on in a thick layer over the top. I baked it in a hot oven (probably about 190C) for about 30 minutes til the top went lovely brown and crusty. It made eight generous portions! Very tasty and warming on a cold wintry night…