Stuffed.

'Tis the season to be stuffing - stockings, vegetables, turkey, ourselves!  So today's blog is devoted to the recent vegetables I stuffed and then stuffed myself and Mike with and it was good.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

This lovely acorn squash (probably one of my favourites) is filled with red pepper, onion, nutritional yeast, olive oil, cumin, salt, cayenne and bread crumbs - simple but effective and super tasty!

Be sure to coat the squash with a bit of olive oil too, to bring out more flavour and to keep everything from sticking together.

For my butternut squash I scrapped out more of the inside (a tough job, good arm workout) because the hollow part is very small as you can see in the top-most photo.  I wanted more room to add more vegetables.

Stuffed Butternut Squash

I filled this baby with chopped green pepper, yellow pepper, zucchini, carrot, onion, broccoli, add nutritional yeast, almond butter, olive oil, cumin and cayenne (my favourite spice combo), salt, and topped with bread crumbs.

Stuffed Eggplant

Same idea, different vegetable.  I scooped out most of the inside of this massive eggplant to fill with zucchini, carrots, pepper, onion, bits of left over butternut squash, broccoli, and added almond butter, olive oil, nutritional yeast, cumin, cayenne, salt, and of course bread crumbs on top it all off.

I baked most of these at 350F for about 45-55 minutes depending on the size of the vegetable.  The butternut squash will take the longest.

What else can we stuff?

I recently bought two massive green peppers, perfect for stuffing and can't wait to do so, which I think will be tonight.  Found this great vegan recipe on a website called Sweet Salty Spicy that I think I'll try.

Please share your comments, questions, suggestions with me - would love to hear your thoughts!

Cheers!

Grand Bend Weekend Bliss

 

Friday night Mike and I drove up to Grand Bend to stay for the weekend and what a beautiful, peaceful and enjoyable weekend it was.

After our Saturday morning beach walk we spent the rest of our morning and day at London's Covent Garden Market - my favourite thing to do on a Saturday morning - and visiting friends.

We enjoyed some good treats at the market but also brought some home to make dinner that night. 

First time taste of a Spinach Burek (Börek) pastry - we just had to try one after watching the guy make them, very interesting method that involved a lot of tossing around this flaky dough and using an entire table to spread it out.

For dinner I tried to make something from my 500 Vegan Recipes cook book but ended up improvising most of the recipe since I was missing a few ingredients.  Sadly, at this point, my digital camera's battery also died, which meant I was relying on a disposal camera that I bought and clearly forgot how to use (oh the age of digital cameras have broken us) and none of my food photos came out.

Either way this was on the menu ...

Roasted peppers stuffed with brown rice, broccoli, green apple, tomato, natural peanut butter, a bit of olive oil, and spices including curry, basil, salt and cayenne pepper accompanied by some green salad and Farmer's Market bread - delish!

 

The camera wasn't total loss, we enjoyed a wonderful evening on the beach ...

 

Playing with Scarlet on the beach - the sand and twigs she loved, the water, not so much!

Sweetness - that is, until Scarlet trampled all over it lol!

The next morning we made brunch for the Londoners ...

Banana Fritters, from 500 Vegan Recipes, although I don't think my turned quite as good as they were suppose but everyone was very sweet and said they liked them; vegan "buttermilk" pancakes, sweet fruit platter that included strawberries, grapes and oranges, a cheese and crackers platter and of course, some bacon and eggs - for the boys.

It was a perfect weekend in a gorgeous home, near the beach with great weather,  good food with good friends, and a lovely time spent with best boyfriend ever! ♥

Best, Gluten-Free, Pizza Crust, Ever!

Sweet Potato Pizza Crust
I got the original recipe from fatfree.com but made my own alternations of course.

3 cups cubed sweet potatoes
1 cup gluten-free flour
Herbs of choice

My pizza toppings, like to keep them simple:

- Olive oil (base)
- Spinach
- Red peppers
- Chicken
- 1/2 tbsp Parmesan cheese
- 2 tbsp Honey garlic BBQ Sauce

  


1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Boil potatoes until done and then mash. Slowly add flour. Mix together.
3. Add herbs of choice. Spread out over a lightly sprayed cookie sheet or pizza pan. Bake for 15 minutes.
4. Take out and top with sauce and toppings of choice. Bake another 20 minutes until done.

Just three ingredients for the pizza dough.

Pressing out the pizza dough - my tray was way too big!

 

'Oh, I can't wait to get me a feller and make me some pie!'
- Elaine from Seinfeld