Wednesday Night: Sauteed Vegetables, Tomato-Pasta Gratin

We got a new CSA box, so last night we needed to finish out the stuff left from previous boxes and get a start on this one. Sauteed vegetables is always a good way to use up a ton of stuff quickly, so that was one of last night's dishes. I kept trying to figure out a way to get cheese involved in the meal (mashed potatoes with cheese? polenta with cheese?) and finally realized that what I wanted was macaroni and cheese.

The mix for the sauteed vegetables was: bacon, carrots [CSA], onions, eggplant [CSA], potato [CSA], dandelion greens. For serving, I topped it with a mixture of minced parsley [CSA], minced garlic, and grated lemon peel to liven things up a bit.

To make the pasta gratin, I started with a sauce veloute (butter, flour, chicken stock) and added white wine (what do you call a sauce veloute with wine?), cayenne, and grated Emmenthaler and Romano cheeses. I poured this over some mostly-cooked farfalle mixed with diced San Marzano tomatoes [CSA] in a grated dish. After topping with a bread crumb/minced garlic/olive oil mixture, I baked it at 400 until brown and crunchy.

To go with this goodness we had a bit of leftover chicken and another apple galette, made with the second half of Sunday night's dough, for dessert.