Kale & Kabocha Squash Curry Coconut Soup

This would be a perfect meal to make Sunday night, and then store and have waiting for you when you come home after a case of the Mondays; it's comforting, delicious, and tastes even better the next day. But it's also easy enough to quickly whip together after a long work day, in keeping with the theme of many of my vegan MoFo recipes.

When I saw red kabocha at the farmer's market, with a little sign that described it's sweet flavor, I knew I had to have it. I use green kabocha pretty regularly now, but hadn't tried the red variety yet. Kabocha squash is delicious roasted on its own, in curries, or in soups -like this Asian udon noodle soup- or this Fall-themed soup.

Coconut Greens and Kuri Squash

Nothing fancy here. Just another simple, easy, healthy but yummy weeknight meal to add to the mix!

Butternut Squash Orzo with Sage Brown Butter

Do you ever make a meal, while sipping a glass of wine (or two), and then finally sit down to eat it, and think, "Holy crap, this is amazing. What the hell did I put in this?"-? This was one of those meals. But don't worry, I think I do actually remember the exact ingredients here. And if you don't think it tastes completely awesome, blame the white wine ;-)

White Acorn Squash with Sweet Tempeh and Mushrooms

I love "squash bowl" meals. Give me a fall squash and I'm happy. Add some more veggies to it, even better. There are a million variations to stuffed squash dinners- here's another tasty one!

White Acorn Squash with Sweet Tempeh and Mushroooms
Serves 2
Ingredients:

• 1 white acorn squash 
• 8 oz shittake mushrooms, sliced
• 1 package of tempeh, cubed
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup
• 2-3 Tbsp soy sauce
• A few dashes of sriracha (I used about 6-8 drops)
• 1 tsp fig jam
• handful of almonds, chopped

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Slice squash in half and remove seeds. Place face down in large dish with a few inches of water. Cook for 30-35 minutes, until tender with a fork.
2. After putting the squash in the oven, mix together the maple syrup, soy sauce, sriracha and jam in a small bowl. Place the tempeh in a bake safe dish and pour the sauce over it; toss to coat. Place in the oven with the squash for 15 minutes.
3. In a small bowl, place the sliced mushrooms with 1 Tbsp soy sauce and toss.  After 15 minutes of cooking the tempeh, add in the mushrooms and sliced almonds, stirring to mix around the sauce. Add more maple syrup and/or soy sauce if needed, and cook for until 10-15 minutes, until tempeh is browned.
4. To serve, place the tempeh mix inside each half of squash and enjoy warm. 

Deeeeelish. The sweet tempeh, mushrooms, and almonds go so well with the acorn squash.

Other squash bowl meal ideas:

• Acorn squash stuffed with roasted veggie quinoa, rainbow quinoa with cranberries, nuts, and spinach, or quinoa with cashew butter and apples
• Butternut squash with farro or wheatberry salad
• Spaghetti squash with tomato sauce, broccoli, and mushrooms

Gotta love those fall squashes! 

Fall Coconut Curry

This dish is a warm bowl of goodness, a blending of my farmer's market veggies this week. Sweet Fall squash, seasoned tofu, cauliflower, and kale all stewed in a blend of coconut and curry spice.

Kabocha-Udon Soup

This udon soup is packed with kabocha squash, mushrooms, and healthy goodness in a low-calorie meal that is easy to make.

I love the use of both udon noodles - which are thick and a little chewy- combined with sweet kabocha in this dish.  If you haven't heard of kabocha squash before, read on for veggieosity info; if you have, read on for a new recipe to use it in.

Mac and Not-cheese

Ok, so I had some issues with my last vegan "mac & cheese" dish. But I still wanted to attempt another. When my husband was out of town for work, I made my move on this recipe (recommended by a reader- thank you!) from the well-known and well-loved blog Oh She Glows. She said it was "husband approved," but as my husband takes serious offense to cheese substitutes, I thought I'd give it a go on my own.

First, I have to say- I have yet to taste a vegan "cheese" pasta dish that tastes anything remotely like real cheese (let's be honest here). Furthermore, I don't really want something that makes you go, "Oh yeah, that pretty much tastes like cheese." Which leads me to the decision that these dishes should really not be called mac & cheese dishes. Or even cheez, cheeze, or "cheese." Please.

I'm not saying they're bad. To the contrary. But I think they'd have more success with non-veggers if we all just gave up on trying to call them cheese. The sauce in these pasta dishes is something else entirely. This dish was very good, with a hearty, smooth sauce that definitely looked like mac & cheese cheese. But it didn't taste like it. Which is fine- because it tasted like a sort of creamy squash sauce, and I love squash. But I guess mac & squash sauce just doesn't sound the same...

Cheesey looking...

Here's the recipe, adapted from Oh She Glows:
Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 1 Tbsp Earth Balance
• 3/4 cup unsweetened unflavored almond milk
• 1 Tbsp flour
• 1.5 Tbsp nutritional yeast (I cut back from 6! - because I can't stand the flavor)
• 2.5 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• Salt & pepper to taste
• Package vegan pasta (such as brown rice, quinoa, or kamut)
• Optional mix-ins: peas, kale, spinach (any or all!) 

Steps:

1. Cook the squash - (I sliced in half and placed face down in pan with about an in of water in oven at ~ 425 for maybe 40 minutes, until tender when pierced with a fork; but you can also cut it and cook it as described here.)
2. In a small saucepan, melt the Earth Balance over low heat. Meanwhile, mix the milk & flour in a small bowl and add them to the melted butter. Stir in the Dijon, nutritional yeast, garlic powder and salt & pepper and whisk over low heat for about 5-7 min, until thickened.
3. When the squash is done, scoop out 1 cup of cooked squash and place in a blender. Add in the sauce from the saucepan and blend well.
4. Cook pasta according to package instructions. If using, steam your mix ins.
5. Mix it all together & enjoy!

A nice warm meal!

Notes:
I really enjoyed this dish. It's easy to make, healthy, and totally satisfying. Like I said, it didn't taste at all like cheese, but it did taste good. Just like a tofu scramble doesn't taste like scrambled eggs, but is still a good breakfast. I know some people might say if I used all the nutritional yeast, it would taste like cheese, but trust me, I've done that, and nope, it doesn't. The taste of nutritional yeast is not the taste of tangy or nutty cheese. But some people like it, and it does have nutritional benefits, so I use it in moderation.

Now, back to thinking of alternate names for vegan cheese-substitute sauces made from squash.... squeeze? squauce? Lookslikecheesebutisactuallymadefromsquash sauce? Might be a bit long.... ;-)

Vegan Acorn Squash Alfredo Pasta

I was completely excited by the gorgeous photos of acorn squash alfredo pasta on Healthy Happy Life, and had to try this recipe. It didn't turn out exactly as I'd hoped, so here's how I would edit the original recipe for next time:

• First, consider this a do-ahead dish. Meaning, make it the day before you want to eat it, and let the flavors settle and mingle overnight in the fridge. Something about the yeast flakes just totally changes with time. When I ate the leftovers the next day, it almost a different dish- much milder and actually fairly tasty.
  
• Second, rather than using 1/3 cup of the nutritional yeast flakes, I would down it quite a bit, especially if it is your first time trying them. The yeast flakes have a very strong flavor.
• Third, I would halve the other spices as well. It was all just a little overwhelming. 
• Fourth, I had waaaaaay too much sauce, even making a full box of pasta. You could probably get away with halving the sauce ingredients. 

Accounting for notes above, I'm posting an edited ingredient list from the original- amounts here are reduced but not halved, but you can always store extra sauce for later. The original recipe called for 4 cups of squash.

Ingredients: (should still make enough to serve 4-6)

• 3 cups of roasted acorn squash (the majority of a medium-sized squash)
• 1/2-3/4 cup parsley or fresh basil, chopped
• 1/2 cup plain almond or soy milk
• 2 Tbsp nutritional yeast flakes
• 1.5 Tbsp Dijon mustard
• 1.5 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 1.5 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
• 2 cloves roasted garlic
• 1 Tbsp dried Italian herbs
• 1 Tbsp maple syrup
• 1/4-1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 bag pasta (try: quinoa or kamut pasta)
• 1 cup fresh crimini mushrooms

The original recipe made TONS of sauce!

Steps:

1. Cut the squash in half, remove seeds, and place face down on baking sheet in an inch of water. Cook at 400 degrees for about an hour.
2. Whisk together the oil, vinegar, milk, syrup, mustard, yeast flakes, dried Italian herbs and pepper flakes. 
3. When squash is done cooking, spoon into food processor and add the parsley/basil, garlic, and the whisked sauce mix. (Note: if your food processor is not big enough to hold everything, add half the squash, half the parsley, 1 garlic clove, and half of the whisked mix. You want things to mix evenly). Process well, at least a few minutes, until creamy & completely smooth. 
4. Cook the pasta. About 2 minutes before it's done, add in the mushrooms to cook them as well. Drain the pasta and mushrooms, and place in a large dish. Add the sauce and coat well. 
5. To allow flavors to mingle, store in fridge overnight and re-heat the following day.

See my comments in "Adventures in Veganizing" for additional notes on this dish. I'm looking forward to updating it and trying again, since I think it has potential.

Herb Greens & Kabocha Summer Salad

Haven't heard of kabocha squash? Neither had I, until about a month ago. I found out about it through a site called Kabocha Fashion - which may not sound like a recipe or food site, but it does in fact have some good vegan recipes!

There are apparently many ways to cook kabocha squash, including cutting it up and baking or roasting it, steaming it, or braising it, or even just shoving it whole into the oven- you can actually eat the outside skin (it's actually very good for you)! This page has some useful information about kabochas.

For the above salad, you can see I actually did leave the skin on- I was pretty enticed by the nutritional value and just the oddity of essentially eating a pumpkin peel (kabocha, in fact, is often described as a mix between a pumpkin and a squash, or a Japanese pumpkin). I'm a little embarrassed to admit I picked the easiest possible way to cook the squash, and, yes, just put the darn thing whole in the oven, at 400 degrees F. (I washed the skin first and rubbed it with a little olive oil). Cutting through the whole raw squash is no joke; I figured I'd let it soften a bit before I used my muscles on it ;-)

It took a loooong time to cook- after about 40 minutes I took it out, quartered it and scooped out the seeds, covered it with tin foil (shiny side inside), and brushed the skin with more olive oil. I cooked it for another 40-45 minutes. It may have still been a little fleshy and the skin slightly too hard, so next time I may try another cooking method, such as this (as recommended by Nicky):

Peel the skin, cut into inch-sized pieces, spread on a cooking sheet, spray with cooking oil, and bake at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes.

OR, I may have another go at leaving the skin on, since it's so good for you, and just cover it more fully throughout cooking and be prepared for a long bake ;-)

Ingredients in the pictured salad include:

• Organic herb salad mix (A new find at the store! Contains raddicio, red & green romaine, red leaf, chard, frisee, baby arugula, dill, parsley, and cilantro)
• Steamed asparagus, chopped
• Fresh strawberries
• Kabocha
• Chopped dates
• Chopped figs
• Tomatoes

Butternut Squash and Arugula Salad

From: Bon Appetit culinary series, Sur La Table cooking class

This salad is absolutely delicious, a wonderful start or side to a fall meal. Often I find arugula too bitter, but when paired with these ingredients, it's perfect. The roasted butternut squash is amazing.

Serves: 6

Ingredients:

• One 2lb butternut squash, peeled and seeded and cut into 1/2 inch cubes (about 4 and 1/2 to 5 cups)
• 2 Tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
• Pinch of dried crushed red pepper
• Coarse kosher salt
• 2 Tbsp orange juice
• 1 and 1/2 Tbsp of walnut oil or other nut oil
• 1 and 1/2 tsp fresh lemon juice
• 4 ounces of arugula (about 8 cups lightly packed)
• 1/2 cup walnuts, toasted and coarsley chopped
• 1/2 cup pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries
• 2 tsp pomegranate molasses (this is a thick pomegranate syrup that is honestly hard to find- apparently it's in some Middle Eastern markets- ummm....where are they?- and online at adrianascaravan.com - it's delicious, so if you end up finding it, I'd buy some; if not, you can try substituting other items as a dressing- a balsamic vinegrette may work, but it's not as good...)

Steps:

1. Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. Toss squash, olive oil, and crushed red pepper on large rimmed baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt. Roast for 15 min. Using spatula, turn squash over. Continue roasting until edges are brown and squash is tender, about 15 more min. Sprinkle with more coarse salt. Note: This can be done 2 hrs ahead, and let stand at room temp.
   
2. Whisk orange juice, walnut oil, and lemon juice in a large shallow bowl. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add arugula, walnuts, and pomegranate seeds (or cranberries) and toss to coat.
   
3. Spoon the warm or room temperature squash over the salad. Drizzle with the pomegranate molasses and serve.

Notes: I'd actually recommend buying the pomegranate molasses. It's only 5 bucks online, and wow, it really makes the salad. It's a unique ingredient that could be used in other dishes as well to add a nice pop. This is an easy salad to make, with the only real time commitment being the squash. If you're having trouble cutting it, you can cook it a little bit (about 10 min) to soften. Also, note the "do ahead" option if you are having guests over and don't want to be cooking and entertaining.