Walnut Roasted Squash

Tom today!

My housemate James is a proper bargain hunter, and recently he found us an offer to get four veg boxes (from the riverford company) for 20 pounds. As a result we've had a nice variety of vegetables we've been trying out new recipes with. This is a variation on a recipe I make quite a lot with roasts. Here I've really extended the Asian flavours, and the walnuts and pumpkin mix well.

Ingredients (serves 4 as a main or around 6 as a side dish):

1 Japanese Pumpkin
3 cloves Garlic
1 Red Chili
1 tbsp Sesame Seeds
4 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Sake
3 tbsp Olive oil
120g Walnuts
Salt and Pepper (around a tsp of each)
1 tsp Nutmeg
1 tbsp Sea flakes
1/2 Red onion

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200 degrees Celsius
Peel the pumpkin, then halve it and scoop out the seeds (I find it much easier to do in that order)
Chop into 1 cm chunks
Dice the garlic and chili finely
Crush the walnuts and slice the onion roughly
Throw everything in a roasting tin
Add the oil, sake, seeds, soy sauce and spices
Season to taste
Toss everything to mix and coat it all
Bake until the pumpkin is soft - around 35 mins
(If you find that quite a lot of liquid is coming out, you might like to turn the oven up for the last 15 minutes to boil off the liquid and crisp up the pumpkin slightly)

This is quite a simple recipe, and goes really tasty with the sweetness of the raisins in the baked cabbage recipe (link). Hope you enjoy it!

Baked Cabbage

This is just a quick simple recipe that I made as a side dish for a roast dinner with the Walnut Roasted Squash (link), but was tasty enough (in my opinion) to warrant a blog post - and my housemate agreed (despite offering me the whole cabbage saying 'I don't want it because you can't make it taste good.') I think I succeeded. Yes, I'm being smug.

Ingredients

1/2 White Cabbage
2 cloves Garlic
1/4 cup Raisins
Pinch of Salt
Good grinding of Pepper
1 tspBalsamic Vinegar
1 tsp Olive Oil

Method:

Shred the cabbage
Chop up the garlic
Add all the ingredients and toss in a roasting tin (as you can see my is the same one that has been used many times in posts)
Bake for 40 minutes until soft and brown round the edges
Serve with other roast vegetable, potatoes and any main dish!

Hazelnut and Carrot Loaf

This is the recipe that I made with my family on actual christmas day. It went down extremely well with both me and my non-vegan family who enjoyed it as a kind of stuffing-esque side dish. It made a nice change from the parsnip and cashew nut roast (which I love but have made every roast dinner since I went vegan). This made two small loaf tins, both of which I cooked and one which I froze for a later date (which worked fine!).

Ingredients:

125g Chopped Hazelnuts
125 Wholemeal Breadcrumbs
2 tsp Olive Oil
1 medium Onion
2 large Carrots
2 sticks Celery
2 cloves Garlic
1 tsp Thyme
1 tsp Sage
1 tsp Mixed Herbs
1 tsp Nutmeg
2 tbsp Soy Sauce
1 Courgette
100g Red Lentils
1/2 cup Mushrooms

Method:

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius
Chop the onion roughly and fry in oil until soft
Grate the carrot, and chop the celery, mushrooms and garlic and add these to the pan
Fry these until soft
Add the nuts, breadcrumbs and spices and mix thoroughly
Cook the lentils in salted water until soft, strain and add these to the pan
Remove from the heat, and stir through the soy sauce
Place half into a loaf tin (/a quarter into two tins if making two)
Using a peeler, make thin slices of the courgette
Layer these onto the first layer of the loaf
Cover with the rest of the mixture, and then smooth down
Bake for 40 minutes, until browned and relatively set
Either turn out into a plate and serve or leave to cool and then freeze

Not much else to say with this recipe. If you think it's lacking in seasoning a bit crumble half a vegetable stock cube on before the soy sauce, or use a teaspoon of Bouillon. I didn't think it really needed t though. I'm sure other nuts would work with this as well, almond would go nicely I think! Let us know how yours go at twocooksoneblog@gmail.com

And a very belated happy Christmas from the Scurr household!