Roasted Stuffed Acorn Squash

This is FALL.

2 acorn squashes, halved and cored
pecans, rough chop
onions, chopped
garlic, minced
fresh rosemary, sage, parsley, chopped
dried cranberries
1 cup couscous
olive oil
1 tbs Earth Balance
S+P

Preheat oven to 375. Oil up your halves, season with salt and pepper and place meat down on your baking sheet. Roast until your fork can pierce the shell, 20-30 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté onions and garlic in oil and Earth Balance until translucent. Add your rosemary and sage and sauté til fragrant, 30 seconds or so. Add 1 1/2 cup water, bring to a boil. Mix in couscous, parsley, dried cranberries, and pecans. Remove from heat, cover and let sit for 10 minutes.

Stuff your mix in the squashes and serve.

A non-vegan might top with parmesan cheese. ;)

Moroccan Inspired CousCous and Butternut Squash with Spiced Tofu

Okay, this came out really great and I have no idea how. It's an amalgam of three different recipes and had the potential to go terribly wrong. Andy wanted me to look at something on TV and I literally could not leave the stove for a few seconds or lose the plot of the whole thing.

Anyway, it was delicious! As usual, all quantities are approximate.

Tofu:
1/2 tsp Cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp Cumin
1 tsp Brown sugar
1/2 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp Salt + 1/2 tsp Pepper
1/2 tsp dried mustard
Tofu

CousCous:
2 tbs toasted pine nuts
dried cranberries
1 cup couscous
handful chopped parsley

Dressing:
Orange zest
juice of one lemon
1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp cinnamon
olive oil

Butternut squash, cubed

1. Preheat oven to 375 and position rack to the tope 1/3 of your oven. Cube squash and toss with olive oil and a dash of salt. Arrange in a single layer and roast til tender (20-30 minutes depending on the size of your cubes). Set aside.

2. Cut your tofu into slabs and drain by wrapping in paper towels and setting a plate on top for weight. Leave for 15 minutes.

3. In a small bowl, mix together your rub ingredients. When tofu is drained, dredge in rub. Pan fry in a couple teaspoons of olive oil. Keep in a warm oven (225) until you need them.

4. Toast pine nuts in a small pan. Boil 1 cup of water; add dry couscous, cranberries, parsley, and pine nuts. Stir, remove from heat, cover and set aside for 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork.

5. Toss together dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Toss in prepared couscous and squash.

6. Plate with tofu on top.

Black Bean Hummus and Tabouleh

Thanks, Mark and Kristi for the black bean hummus suggestion; I will seriously never use chickpeas again.

Black Bean Hummus

1 can black beans with 1/2 their juice
juice of 2 lemons
3 cloves roasted garlic
7 tbs tahini

Puree all in your food processor and refrigerate.

Tabouleh

(play with the quantities)
juice of 2 lemons
1c cooked bulgar wheat
cucumber, diced
mint, chopped
parsley, chopped
tomato, diced
scallions, chopped
olive oil
salt

Prepare bulgar wheat according to package directions (cooks a lot like cous-cous or quinoa: bring water to a boil and simmer for 12-15 minutes). Mix in with the rest of your ingredients and refrigerate. Serve chilled.

Vegan Whole Wheat Pancakes

Adapted from here

I like this recipe because it doesn't make too much batter, they are super light and vegan!

1c whole wheat flour
1c almond milk (or soy)
2tsp baking powder
2tbs veg oil
pinch salt

Mix ingredients. Use margarine or Earth Balance to make the pancakes on your griddle or fry pan on medium high heat. Lower the heat to medium after the first flip. I topped mine with raspberries, yum!

Hummus, flatbread

Andy got a box of tabouli from Whole Foods, it was not very good; tasted like powdered, dusty bulgur wheat. No thanks. But my homemade flatbread and hummus was great!

Hummus
1 can garbonzo beans with half their juice
7 tbs tahini
4 cloves roasted garlic
1/4 c olive oil
juice of two lemons
Salt

Mix all in your food processor till as smooth as you want.

Flatbread
Preheat oven to 375, follow directions, pat into little pancakes and bake for 10-15 minutes.

Vegan Shepard's Pie

It's a lot like this but with squashes and carrots. Just as yummy but vegan!

Ingredients

Potatoes, peeled and cubed
Almond/Soy/Rice Milk
Earth Balance
Cloves garlic, whole roasted then minced

Olive oil
3c various diced squashes and carrots
Cloves of garlic, whole roasted then minced
2 tbl shallots, minced
2tbl rosemary, chopped
3tbl flour
1 1/2 c veggie broth
S+P

Preheat oven to 375.

Dice veggies, spread in a single layer with the whole garlic cloves on a lined cookie sheet, coat with olive oil and pinch of salt and pepper, and roast until the carrots are sort of soft or 30 minutes.

While the veggies roast, boil potatoes until soft. Mash potatoes with Earth Balance, salt and pepper, and your milk. Mince and then add the roasted garlic cloves. Set aside.

In a big pan, sautee the shallots, garlic and rosemary until soft and add veggies. Mix the flour into the veggie broth and pour the mixture into the pan with the veggies. Let that simmer for a minute and thicken.

Pour the veggie mix into the bottom of an 8X8 pan, top with mashed potatoes and bake for 20 minutes. Enjoy!!

Another Life Change

I had my baby in March. I don't want to be morbid but, yikes, here I go: if I thought I was afraid to die before he arrived, now I'm petrified. I really, really want to live to see Owen grow up. Go to college, get married, have kids, turn 50. The works.

Which is why the documentary Forks Over Knives affected me so powerfully, I think. I watched scientists say I could avoid cancer, diabetes, heart disease and chronic illnesses by adopting a plant-based diet and they had statistics to back it up. I freaking love stats: I feel like they are the closest thing to proof of a theory anyone can get. The film explored the environmental impact of eating meat which is pretty terrible; the dubious morality of raising animals only to overfeed, pump with hormones, trap in cages, and then slaughter them; the way the different food industries falsely brand themselves as the source of nutrients we can get from more responsible sources; and the health benefits of being vegan.

So, at the risk of sounding like a 17 year old high school girl entering a phase: I'm going vegan. Since watching the movie, I've begun to read The China Study by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, I've watched Sanjay Gupta's "The Last Heart Attack" (Bill Clinton is vegan now!), listened to some podcasts and read a bunch of articles. I've researched how it will affect me as a nursing mother and have found it doesn't. I've started taking my prenatal vitamins again for the Vitamin B12.

This blog will now be vegan. I'm hoping to put together a collection of truly yummy dishes that me and my family will love.

Awesome Vegan Chocolate Cake

So freaking good. Adapted from an Instructables. 


Cake Ingredients
3/4 c wheat flour
1/2 c white flour
1 cup raw sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup warm coffee
1 tsp vanilla or almond extract
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp distilled white vinegar

Chocolate Glaze Ingredients

1/2 cup raw sugar
4 tbsp margarine (Earth Balance works)
2 tbsp soy/almond milk
2 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp vanilla extract


Preheat over to 350 degrees.


Mix dry ingredients well then mix in wet. Cook for 30-40 minutes in an 8X8 square cake dish or until toothpick comes out clean. Let cool if you can stand it.


For the glaze, bring all the ingredients except the extract to a boil for two minutes, stirring constantly. Remove from heat and stir in vanilla; keep stirring for a bit. Pour onto cake.


SO GOOD.