In support of the Central England Co-op’s Easy Eating Campaign I’m making a few wartime recipes to promote simple, easy food and support food bloggers in the UK.
The first recipe is a simple, inexpensive, veggie meal, using fresh food from the Co-op, taken from the wartime Ministry of Foods Cheese leaflet No 12… Vegetable au Gratin.
And there is a story behind this dish and it’s to do with the big pottery dish I used in this recipe…
Richard (Mr Tiddles) and I recently spent four days in France in La Rochelle. One day we popped into a small little shop tucked down one of the back streets, to buy some bread, cheese and wine (we heard you have to do that in France so we did).
I think the shop keeper loved Richard and his beard, he called his wife down for a chat (they lived over the top of the shop) and he gave Richard a free big pottery dish which we gratefully took away with us back to the UK.
Seeing the wartime recipe for ‘Vegetables au Gratin’ I just had to use the dish (which by the way says on it ‘Tradition de Vendee – Porc Fermier Plein Air’ and if you know what that translates to I’d be ever so grateful if you could share your linguistic wisdom).
So here is ‘Vegetable au Gratin’ served in a French dish that travelled all the way back from France in Richard’s backpack. It’s simple, tasty, and economical.. ENJOY!
Ingredients
- 3 breakfast cups of diced cooked vegetables
- 1 breakfast cup of white or coloured beans
- 1 small chopped leek
- 3 oz strong grated cheese (use more if available)
- 1 oz flour
- 1/2 pint of vegetable stock
- 1/2 pint of milk (I used almond milk)
- Lots of salt and pepper
Method
- Cook vegetables and set aside
- Mix flour to a paste with some of the vegetable stock and milk
- Put the remaining liquid in a pan and bring to the boil.
- Slowly add in the paste and mix
- Add the cooked vegetables and half the cheese and season with lots of salt and pepper
- Put into a ovenproof dish
- Sprinkle with cheese and a sliced tomato (optional)
- Grill until browned
This dish serves 4 – 6 people and using ingredients from the Co-op it cost £3.50 to make.
C xxx
yum yum looks good and I will try this out–wonder if you can freeze it??
Tradition de Vendee – Porc Fermier Plein Air. Well, Vendee is a department of the Pays-de-la-Loire region. I believe the rest is literally “Farmer pork open air” or more colloquially, “free-range farm-raised pork.”
What a great story to go with a great looking dish!
Looks good and I bet it would work with goats cheese too if you’re dairy intolerant like I am. Glad to hear you’re still getting out and about with Richard. I hoped that was the reason for the lack of posts recently!
Ok, sorry to sound like the ignorant American but what’s the difference between a breakfast cup and a regular cup? And, I’m so excited for you…life (and love) is keeping you busy and obviously fulfilled…you’re glowing even in your writing. 😉
Hi Carolyn
I am loving your recipes that you are putting up here.
Julia from memory and research that I have done.
Breakfast cup = 10oz
Teacup or small cup = 5oz
Measuring cup = 8oz or 250ml (metric)
Also for Americans an English pint is 20 ozs whereas an American pint is 16 ozs.
it is getting very hard to find a lot of these lovely recipes as the central recipe list has not been updated for quite a while!
Hello. I think the French means: ‘Tradition of the Vendee – Outdoor Pork Farmer’. Or something like that. Outdoor Free range, anyway, like Lili said. Thanks for the recipes, I’m enjoying your page.
House-bound due to the coronavirus pandemic, the recipe for Vegetable au Gratin sounds like a good meal. Now, to find fresh vegetables.