Stuffed Tomato and Delicata Squash

Simple to make Sunday dinner. I wanted to make "Baked eggs in Tomatoes" but the husband is weird about eggs, so I swapped out the egg for a rice and mushroom mixture. I chose those because that's what I had in the fridge. You could stuff it with anything though. The delicata squash only appears for a few weeks every fall, so every year I mess with the recipe a little more. Serve these separately or together with a salad (frisee and arugala shown here.)

For the tomato:
Sautee mixed mushrooms with diced onion and garlic, mix with a little parmesan and cooked brown rice and set aside.
Cut off top and hollow out the tomato of all liquid and seeds. Then sprinkle the inside with salt.
Stuff tomato tightly with rice and mushrooms and place on oiled baking sheet.

For the squash:
Halfway mash some white beans with some finely chopped spinach and ricotta cheese. You could mix in an egg, but it's not essential.
Halve the squash and scrape out seeds. Pack in the bean mixture and top with panko breadcrumbs. Place on baking sheet.

Bake either or both at 400 degrees until tops are brown.

ONE jalapeno harvest

One jalapeno plant produces far more peppers than one person can possibly use. I picked a bag this big at least 4 times this summer. Most of the time I would just use one per night for dinner. I also did some jalapeno vodka infusions. But the bulk of them are going to my friends Bridget and Brian so they can make more of their delicious hotsauce, with which I liberally top most of my meals.

Tempeh Cakes

I have been obsessed with Terrene's tempeh cakes for some time now. These ones were almost as good. I served them with brussels sprouts and mashed butternut squash and spuds. It's also super easy to make if you are willing to be a little carefree with your recipe. You could pretty much use any vegetables (corn, peppers, olives) or herbs (nori, basil, oregano, sage) and steer the flavour in whatever direction you wanted i.e. southwestern, Mediterranean, Asian. I think I steered the flavour in a sort of home-style direction.

Ingredients:
I pack tempeh
3-4 ribs celery diced
1 large carrot diced
1 large dollop of vegan or normal mayonaise
1 T wholegrain mustard
1 1/2 cup Panko breadcrumbs
1 T minced parsley and thyme
salt and pepper

Directions:
Reserve breadcrumbs, celery and carrots and place all other ingredients in blender and blend until almost smooth. If mixture is too thick, add a little olive oil. Transfer blended mixture to a mixing bowl and stir in reserved ingredients (reserving half the breadcrumbs.) Form mixture into cakes and dredge in remaining breadcrumbs. Place cakes on oiled baking sheet and bake at 425 until both sides are lightly browned. These can also be pan fried if you prefer.

Vegetarian Cassoulet

So I'm not going to lie and act like I made this up out of my head. Never let it be said that I don't give credit where it is due! I've never even had a regular cassoulet so I had nothing to draw from. The husband has been requesting I try to make a vegetarian one for over a year, so I used this recipe from Gourmet magazine. I did add some Field Roast sausages though, because I knew I would hear about it if I didn't. I served it with roasted brussels sprouts and toasted wheat bread with my guilty pleasure - provel cheese. Sorry about the unattractive squareness of it.

Last Caprese Salad of Tomato Season

A Vom Fass recently opened here. They sell all kinds of delicious vinegars and oils and I am like a kid in a candy store there. You can taste anything before you buy it, and it is physically impossible to walk out of there without a bottle of Maletti balsamic vinegar after you've tasted it. It is easily three times as thick as normal balsamic and the flavour is unreal. It made our caprese salads that much more wonderful this summer. Since my stupid tomato plants didn't do anything all summer but take up space, the tomatoes you see here are courtesy of the Amish farmers at TGFM.