holiday

Plant-Based Holiday Stuffed Acorn Squash with Wild Rice, Mushrooms and Cranberries (Vegan)

October 15, 2013 by Veronica Grace 13 Comments

You guys loved my Pumpkin Raisin Muffin recipe last week so how about another fall favourite? Acorn squash! I’m see it now in stores and it reminded me of this recipe I just LOVE in my Vegan Comfort Foods From Around The World recipe book (which by the way is jam packed full of recipes to use at Thanksgiving or Christmas…) It’s Holiday Stuffed Acorn Squash!

I was first inspired to make a recipe like this by watching Forks Over Knives and saw them serving a lovely version for their holiday plant based meal. I decided to make a recipe and cram in as many goodies as possible to make it burst with flavor, there’s mushrooms, celery, pecans, cranberries, wild rice and brown rice in these stuffed squash halves. Instead of butter or margarine I glaze them with a nice balsamic vinegar so those the flavor explode in your mouth with sweet, savory and tangy. When I serve these for holiday meals they are a huge hit!

If you are trying to think of a plant-based centrepiece to your holiday meals this year why not try a stuffed vegetable? I also have several others for you to check out as well Quinoa Veggie Stuffed Zucchini Boats, Greek Vegetable and Rice Stuffed Peppers, Greek Rice Stuffed Eggplant. A fat free stuffed vegetable is a great way to pack in all the flavor without extra calories and show your omnivore friends and delicious holiday entree they wouldn’t otherwise get. 🙂

Plant-Based Holiday Stuffed Acorn Squash With Wild Rice, Mushrooms & Cranberries

Makes 4 -6 stuffed acorn squash halves

Ingredients:

¾ cup dried brown rice, rinsed and cooked
¼ cup dried wild rice, rinsed and cooked
2-3 cups vegetable broth (homemade or low sodium), divided
1/3-1/2 cup dried mushrooms
3 medium or 2 large acorn squash
1 Tbsp. maple syrup or brown sugar
Cooking spray
1 medium onion, finely diced
4 celery stalks, diced
¼ cup dried cranberries (no sugar added variety or sweetened with apple juice)
½ -1 tsp. Herbamare or salt
½ tsp. pepper
½ cup raw pecans, toasted – see Note

NOTE: To toast raw pecans, preheat oven to 350° F/177° C. Place pecans on baking sheet and toast for about 4-5 minutes. Watch carefully to prevent burning.

Directions:

1. If using a rice cooker (I use a Zojirushi), cook your rice 1 hour before you start making the squash. Rinse rice and place in rice cooker. Fill to appropriate line with vegetable stock, not water. Add chopped and rinsed dried mixed mushrooms. Add a little salt and pepper if desired. Stir to combine and cook on mixed rice/white rice setting (depending what kind of rice cooker you have). Let steam 10 minutes after done cooking and fluff with a fork.
2. Heat the oven to 400° F / 204° C and place a rack in the middle position.
3. Cut squash in half with a sharp knife and de-seed. Make sure to get out all the stringy bits inside.
4. Place the squash -hollow side up – on a baking sheet, and spray some cooking spray lightly on the tops and insides of the squash halves. Brush maple syrup on the tops and insides as well, and season with salt and fresh pepper. Roast in the oven for about 30 minutes, until ‘fork tender’.
5. Pour the vegetable broth or water into a pan and when it’s hot, add the onion, and celery. Cook this for 5-6 minutes, stirring occasionally, until just softened.
6. Remove from heat and stir in the cooked rice, pecans, and cranberries. Add salt and fresh pepper if desired.
7. Scoop the rice filling into the roasted squash halves (about ¾ cup for each if 4 halves, ½ cup if 6 smaller halves)
8. Continue roasting the squash for 20 to 30 minutes more – until it’s completely tender, the edges have started to brown a little, and the filling is hot in the middle.
9. Serve the squash warm, with balsamic vinegar on the side as a dip, and a nice salad.

Low Fat Vegan Quinoa Stuffed Zucchini Boats

October 24, 2012 by Veronica Grace 17 Comments

These vegan quinoa stuffed zucchini boats would make a delicious entree for a special dinner or any holiday occasion. I really think it’s important to have a nice entree when serving a holiday meal without meat so those who are not used to eating vegan feel more comfortable eating something more eye catching and filling than a plate full of vegetable sides.

Honestly I think that’s the major problem with people’s perception of a vegan diet. When you take away the meat, they assume they are supposed to just eat salad, a side of steamed vegetables and maybe some rice or a potato and this can get rather mundane day after day. I find that most traditional restaurants have no clue how to make a vegan plate and often just take take take without giving anything back. No meat, no cheese, no creamy sauce/dressing and you’re left with a tiny plate of vegetables with little calories (so you’re starving 30 minutes later).

Don’t let this happen to your family or dinner guests! If you want to serve them a delicious vegan dinner, why not have a beautiful entree like a stuffed vegetable? I have made Greek Stuffed Eggplant on the blog here, Greek Stuffed Peppers and Holiday Stuffed Acorn Squash in my new ebook here. All of them contain rice, so let’s switch it up and try quinoa instead of rice for a change?

Now quinoa can be quite bland on it’s own so it’s nice to serve with saucy vegetables, or season it while it cooks (which is what I did in this recipe.) Then I sautéed it with cooked vegetables to let the flavors meld and then tossed in some chopped pecans and cranberries for good measure to add some more flavor and texture to it.

Most recipes I’ve seen on the internet for zucchini boats are based on ground beef and then topped with cheese and let’s face it, zucchini doesn’t have to be completely hidden by overpowering flavors for people to enjoy it! Zucchini lovers unite! Show everyone how delicious it can be on it’s own without being covered in meat and cheese. 🙂

Check out my recipe below:

(Vegan) Quinoa Stuffed Zucchini Boats

Serves 8

Ingredients:

Quinoa:

1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup vegetable broth low sodium or homemade
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tbsp fresh or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp salt
Fresh ground pepper (as desired)

Zucchini Boats:

4 medium zucchini, washed
1 medium sweet onion, diced
4 cloves of garlic, minced
1 medium carrot, diced
1 stalk of celery, diced
1 handful of greens like spinach, chard, beet greens etc. chopped
1/2-1 cup vegetable broth low sodium or homemade (to cook with)
2 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1/2 tbsp fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp dried thyme
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
2 tbsp cranberries (apple juice sweetened)
1/4 tsp Herbamare or salt (or as desired)
Fresh ground pepper

Directions:

1. Soak the quinoa in a bowl of cool water for 15 minutes.

2. Fill a large 6 quart/litre pot with water and bring to a boil.

3. While waiting for pot to boil, drain quinoa, add vegetable broth 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar, thyme and salt and pepper to a small pot. Bring to a boil and then cover and reduce heat and cook for 25 minutes. Remove from heat, fluff and set aside.

4. Preheat oven to 375 F / 191 C and add zucchinis whole to the large pot of water and boil for 15 minutes until tender. Set aside on racks to cool.

5. Slice zucchinis in half and scoop out the middle seeds, leaving enough flesh to hold the zucchini together. Chop the flesh and set aside. (You can use or discard the seeds if you wish. I discard most of them in favor of the other diced vegetables I’m using)

6. Meanwhile in a large skillet or wok add 1/2 cup vegetable broth and heat over medium high heat. When hot, add onions carrots and thyme. Sauté for 2 or 3 minutes and then add celery, some of the zucchini pulp, balsamic vinegar and garlic. Continue cooking until tender. Add more broth if needed to prevent sticking. Toss in pecans, cranberries, and quinoa and season with salt and pepper as desired.

7. If desired sprinkle some balsamic vinegar and/or salt lightly on the inside of the zucchini boats. Stuff the zucchini with filling mixture. Bake for 20-25 minutes until tender.

8. Serve warm.

Please note: you will not have room for all the other vegetables and quinoa if you use all of the zucchini pulp and seeds. So i just use the pulp and chop it and discard the heavily seeded parts.

I served these with traditional Thanksgiving sides like Garlic Mashed Potatoes and stuffing. For more Thanksgiving and other delicious entree recipes check out my new recipe ebook Vegan Comfort Foods From Around The World. (Some favorite holiday recipes include Holiday Stuffed Acorn Squash, Garlic Mashed Potatoes With Mushrooms and Onions, Cranberry Pecan Holiday Stuffing, Holiday Yam Pecan Casserole, The Best Cabbage Rolls and more.)

Have you ever had stuffed zucchini before or any other stuffed vegetable?

Low Fat Vegan Apple Strawberry Giant Strudel Pie in Phyllo Pastry

April 1, 2012 by Veronica Grace 17 Comments

Low Fat Vegan Chef's Apple Strawberry Strudel

Low Fat Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

Now, before you start drooling all over the keyboard on my delicious (lower fat vegan) Apple Strawberry Giant Strudel Pie recipe, I want to make a quick reminder that my new recipe ebook Comfort Soups To Keep You Warm is now available for sale. I am so happy with the response I’ve recieved on this book so far. People are in love with the delicious and filling soup recipes and blown away by my 40+ pages on tips and tricks on exactly how I cook, what you need and how anyone can make soup and even create their own recipes with anything they have in the fridge! It also contains 30 oil free soup recipes and even some additional bonus recipes you won’t want to miss out on. I know you’re family is going to love these soups recipes so much, they won’t even notice they are healthy or vegan!

Ok, I have a very special recipe for you today… This would be GREAT for a special vegan Easter or holiday dessert.

It was my friend’s birthday a while back and he wanted me to make something yummy for dessert that had apples and cinnamon in it. I started thinking, how could I possibly make an apple pie low fat, but that tastes good? Pie crusts have lots of fat in them from margarine or shortening and raw pie crusts are really fatty from using nuts, so neither were a good solution.

I started thinking of apple crumble, but then you still need margarine to make the crumble crispy and delicious too. (Oil free oat crumble turns out like little muffin bits and rises because of the lack of oil, I’ve already tried it.) So I thought, hey I bet a few layers of phyllo (film or fillo) pastry would do the trick and make the apple strudel delicious without being too heavy. I was inspired by Susan’s recipe for Apple cranberry strudel pie.

But most people’s recipes want you to layer on the margarine or butter in between the phyllo and add lots of nuts.

Well PFFFT to them! Because you don’t even have to do that. The trick to getting a crispy phyllo pastry, is well, just baking it and let is crisp up in the heat. It doesn’t even need oil or butter to get crispy and flaky. I’ll show you how!

Low Fat Apple Strawberry Strudel Pie

So the key to working with phyllo pastry is to make sure ALL of your fillings and baking dish are ready to go. Phyllo dries out very very quickly and you have to work fast or it can tear and fall apart. I had some phyllo in the freezer that I bought months ago (as I had no idea what I would use it for and it became a little warped and ugly). Make sure you let the phyllo rest for a bit and come up to room temperature if you defrost it overnight in the fridge because it is inflexible when it’s so cold. Even though I ripped some of it… I managed to make it work anyway, even though I had never used phyllo before. See? Just fake it til you make it and you can make this apple strawberry strudel too… Even if you rip the phyllo and make a big mess, as long as you get some layers of phyllo sheets in there it will still taste good.

As always I wanted to pack in some more fruit into it, so I decided to use 2 different kinds of apples and some strawberries as they looked pretty fresh at the store. Who doesn’t love fresh summer strawberries? Anyone? I didn’t think so… I also think this would work well if you had frozen cherries, or really sweet peaches, or pears. I’m going to try an apple-pear combo next.

Although I made a bottom crust and a top for this, I decided that the crust (bottom layers) aren’t necessary to make this strudel tasty. They don’t really crisp up and they all stay flat anyway, and the most important part of the strudel is really the top crust. So next time I make it I’m going to skip the bottom crust.

Also the nuts aren’t really that necessary either, the reason we add a little crumbled “something in between” the layers it to keep them separate so hot air can get to them and crisp up the phyllo sheets. You can easily just use rolled oats and skip the nuts to make the recipe even lower in fat.

(Low Fat) Vegan Apple Strawberry Strudel In Phyllo Pastry

Serves 8

Ingredients:

12 (or 6 if you use no bottom crust) 9 x 14″ sheets of phyllo pastry dough (thaw overnight in refrigerator or 5 hours on the counter)
2 tbsp. almonds or other nuts (optional)
2 tbsp. rolled oats (the big flat type oats)
4 medium apples, peeled, cored, and diced (I used Granny Smith and Golden Delicious)
1/2 cup turbinado sugar (raw cane sugar) or other coarse sugar (not white sugar or powdered sugar)
2 teaspoons all purpose white flour, unbleached or cornstarch
2 teaspoons maple syrup, honey, agave or brown rice syrup (any liquid sweetener)
1 tbsp. ceylon cinnamon (my favourite available here) or 1/2 tbsp reg. cassia cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/2 cups diced strawberries
2-3 second spray of canola oil or non-stick spray

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping:
1/4 teaspoon ceylon cinnamon
2 teaspoons regular sugar/white sugar

Directions:

Step #1. Preheat oven to 350 F /177 C. Use a rectangular (not square) baking dish and spritz the bottom with non stick spray (only if making a bottom crust, if not omit). Get the box of phyllo out of the fridge and let it warm up before using so it’s more flexible. Don’t take it out of the plastic package until you are ready to use it.

Step #2: Use a food processor or Vitamix to process the nuts and rolled oats until they are coarsely ground. (You can also just use rolled oats and skip the nuts if desired.)

Step #3: In a large sized bowl, toss the apples, turbinado (raw) sugar, flour, liquid sweetener, ceylon cinnamon, nutmeg and strawberries together gently. In a separate small bowl, mix the ceylon cinnamon and sugar together for the cinnamon-sugar topping.

*If you don’t want a bottom crust, you can skip this next part and go to Step #6.

Step #4: Get out a large piece of parchment paper and unroll the phyllo pastry over it (have a damp towel ready to cover the rest) and take out two sheets at a time and place them into the bottom of the baking dish. (Cover the remaining pieces with the damp towel to prevent them from drying out and cracking.) The sheets will probably be too big for your dish, but you can try and lean them on the side like I did. Also you can use scissors and trim any large ends that stick out.

Step #5: Sprinkle a tablespoon of the nut/oats (or just oats) over the phyllo pastry, layer another two sheets, sprinkle 1 tbsp again, and layer another 2 sheets. You will have 6 sheets total for the bottom of your pastry, in 3 layers.

As you can see my dish is a little small for the size of the pastry sheets. Feel free to trim.

Step #6: Pour in the apple strawberry mixture on top of the 6th sheet (if using a bottom crust). If you’re not using a bottom crust, just pour the apples and strawberries into the bottom of the baking dish.

Step #7: Cover the apple strawberry mixture with 2 more sheets of phyllo and push the edges down a little. If they are too giant, you can trim them. If the edges of the layers are all crammed together in a bunch at the top they won’t cook and will be like raw dough. So use your judgement, you want some tucked in, but not too much. Sprinkle another tablespoon of the nut/oats mixture and cover with another 2 sheets of phyllo. Repeat and cover with another 2 layers, another sprinkle of nuts/oats mixture, and another 2 sheets of phyllo.

Step #8: Spray just the top layer of phyllo with a 2 second spray of canola oil or non stick spray and with a sharp knife, cut the strudel into 8 pieces. (This is so it doesn’t shred when it’s cooked. It’s better to cut it beforehand.)

Step #9: Sprinkle it with the cinnamon-sugar topping. Ooh doesn’t that look pretty!

Step #10: Bake for 45-50 minutes until the apples are tender. You can test them with a fork after 45 minutes in the middle.

Step #11: Allow the strudel to cool a bit before serving (20-30 minutes). Serve warm.

Additional Tips:

Use whatever rectangular baking dish you have to make this strudel pie. Mine is like an oval casserole dish, and it worked ok. I could have used a larger dish because the phyllo sheets are a pretty big. I will trim a little of the excess overhang next time. If you use a large lasagna like pan (9″ x 13″), you should be fine and not have so much extra phyllo on the edges.

*To reheat the apple strawberry strudel you have to do it in an oven. You cannot microwave it or the crust will get all soggy and not be flakey anymore.

Variations:

Use whatever other fruit you like if you don’t want to use strawberries. It’s nice to have two flavours. You could also use some stewed rhubarb. My Nana used to make Apple Rhubarb pie and I loved this combination.

I also made this recipe with apples and Bosc pears. It was quite delicious too!

To Make Traditional Individual Apple Strawberry Strudels

You can also make little strudels with this recipe instead of a giant strudel-like pie.

If you want to make individual strudels, take 3-4 sheet of phyllo pastry per strudel. Place a large piece of parchment paper (larger than the phyllo) underneath it and fill the bottom side of the phyllo (the long side of the rectangle), but leave a 2″ gap on all sides and then roll the strudel up and away from you until it’s like a burrito. Tuck the short ends of the phyllo under the roll. Spritz with a little cooking spray and top with cinnamon-sugar. Pierce the strudel every 2″ to vent along the top and cover loosely in tinfoil. Bake at 375 F/ 190 C in the centre of the oven for 15 minutes. Take off the foil and bake for another 15 minutes until golden. Remove from the oven and let cool before slicing and serve warm.

The top crust of the Apple Strawberry Strudel Pie is really pretty. You can barely see the bottom crust, but it is there. It’s pretty flat and soggy so this is why I don’t think it’s essential to be delicious.

Side view of the apple strawberry strudel. Is your mouth watering yet? Hee hee.

What do you think of my Low Fat Apple Strawberry Strudel Pie recipe?

Also what do you think of the new printer function of the site? Pretty cool huh!

Special Occasions: Holiday Vegan Pecan Pie (Not Low Fat!)

January 4, 2012 by Veronica Grace 3 Comments

This recipe I am mentioning as a special treat my mom and I made for our family this Christmas. It was the first time my mom was eating vegan for Christmas, and we wanted to make a holiday pie that everyone could have for dessert without dietary restrictions.

We were much too full after eating our Baked Maple Yam Pecan Casserole and Fat Free Vegan Cranberry Apple Stuffing so it wasn’t eaten until much later in the evening, and I waited until the next day. It’s just such a rich dessert!

I found the recipe here, and just a warning, in no way shape or form is this a low fat or oil free recipe! I just wanted to offer my feedback on how this vegan pecan pie came out, and if you are making it for your family who will be having pie anyways, at least you can have a bite or piece while making and serving it!

We did not have a pastry cutter OR a food processor down here, but my mom managed to cut in the Earth Balance and make the crust without too much rolling or mixing. It was pretty thick and sturdy, not greasy or flaky though and you can tell it’s definitely homemade and not store bought! 🙂

The filling set really well at the sides, but next time I would bake it longer as it was still not firm in the centre. So it did not come out looking like a perfectly cut piece of pie, but everyone that ate it, didn’t care and enjoyed it anyways! It is very rich, so we cut only tiny pieces instead of a standard 6 or 8 pieces that most people do.

I also specially bought whole wheat saltine crackers, because the recipe said to do so, but in an effort to lower the fat content you can use plain saltines as they have less fat in them than the whole wheat ones. (Whole wheat tends to be dryer, so they always add more oil to baked goods). This serves to thicken up the filling and add some strength to it. You could try adding an extra saltine or two as well, maybe it would be firmer in the middle.

Anyway, this is my first attempt on a vegan holiday pie, and it didn’t turn out too bad! Just make sure to not make it only for yourself and share it with your friends and family!