Carrot and Corn Bake - time (30mins) skill (medium) eating (medium)

Ages since I've done a recipe. But to be honest, I've had the carers cycling through old favourites that are already on here or forgotten to take photos. There've also been some hideous disasters - unripe mango with crab salad (with fish sauce) *shudder* and a rather odd 'yoghurt' made out of crushed cashew nuts that I sort of got used to by the end and may try again just out of sheer pigheadedness....

Anyway. I fancied something different, so I had a look at the 'little used' cookery books I own. I have one by Erica White called Beat Candida Cookbook.  Candida is a 'fungus' that EW and others believe 'overgrows' in your body and causes illness. I have no idea if that's scientifically proven, but I do know her recipes (a) work and (b) taste good.  The yoghurt, shredded coconut and vanilla essence recipe already on here is one of hers.

So, the bake. Quite simple, as my carer said - 'it's making a bechemel sauce with onion then adding the rest' but there's quite a lot of vegetable prep required which takes time. He managed it quite comfortably in the 45mins allotted BUT it needs a long cooking time so you need someone to get it out of the oven for you if you can't do it for yourself!  I think it would be nice in little individual pots which are easier to handle for us meeps... But he used a single dish.

What is it?  An oven bake made from onion, carrot, sweetcorn, celery, eggs and a bit of milk, flour and fat.

Time required? If, like me, your carrots need peeling and hand grating, and onion needs chopping, then allow 45mins, otherwise if you have grated carrot and chopped onion ready done from the supermarket, probably 20-25mins preparation time.

Cooking Skill required? Need to be able to prepare the vegetables, and make a smooth sauce from the fat and milk. So I'd say medium skill level.

Eating ability required? Depends on how fine the carrot is grated, but there's lots of sweetcorn so it's a bit chewy. So medium level.

CARROT AND CORN BAKE

Ingredients
 55g/ 2oz/ 1/2 cup chopped onion
55g/ 2oz/ 1/2 cup chopped celery
2 tbsp unhydrogenated margerine (or butter)
2tbsp wholemeal flour (or whatever flour you have)
230ml/ 8 fl oz/ 1 cup soya or rice milk (or actual cow's milk)
2 free range eggs, beaten
1 large can of sweetcorn (sugar free) or frozen equivalent
255g/ 9oz/ 1 1/2 cups grated or shredded carrot

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees C, or 350 degrees F or gas mark 4
2. Prepare the chopped onion, celery and grated carrot
3. Saute chopped onion and chopped celery in the margerine/ fat over a low heat until transparent
4. Sir in the flour and mix well
5. Add milk slowly, stirring constantly and cook until thick and smooth (the lowish heat makes the flour swell so this takes time and stirring)
6. Remove from heat. Add beaten eggs
7. Add sweetcorn and carrot, mixing well.
8. Pour into a greased oven dish and bake for about 1 hour until a knife in the centre comes out clean.

Alternatives

1. I didn't have any celery. So we were going to add celery seeds, but we couldn't find them. In the end we didn't add any herbs, just salt & pepper. I think it would give a nice balance with the celery. But needs must....
2. Instead of celery? How about fennel, or mixed peppers or leftover boiled potato chunks? You could put pieces of bacon or ham in there too. Maybe cheese sprinkled on the top?
3. Eat with a salad, or cold cuts of meat or maybe roast chicken or other braised meat?
4. I ate mine with tomato and cucumber slices.
5. Put tomato slices on the top for decoration when you bake it.

Can it be frozen? Don't see why not, the Bechemel Sauce element baked into the carrot so it's quite a 'dry' dish. I suppose it may go watery on defrosting but then I'd just add a bit of milk to get it to go back together again.