When it comes to fall, there are a plethora of wonderful dishes out there involving stuffed squashes. Growing up however, like stuffed peppers, those mostly involved some sort of ground beef stuffing. Stuffed squashes are an amazingly filling, delicious, warm, happy-making dish for chill autumn days, so I definitely did not intend to give those up going vegan.
Last week I got in the kitchen to see what I could come up with as a replacement, and pretty much nailed it, if I do say so myself. Oh wait, I don’t have to! I was making dinner for a friend who said:
- “This is the best vegan thing I’ve ever had.” (Oh, btw, he’s not vegan!) AND “Definitely in the top 10 things I’ve ever had, ever.”
- “I would pay you to make these for me.”
- And possibly my favorite, repeated multiple times: “Are you sure there’s not cheese in this??”
Sweet, cheezy, smoky, hearty and filling… I need to make another batch of these ASAP. More importantly, the concept held up exactly as well as I hoped it would. If you’re looking for a good way to continue to have those wonderful stuffed squash dishes, sub tempeh as I did here, and experiment and see what you can come up with. If you create something wonderful, come back and tell me – I’d love to hear about it!
Cheezy deliciousness
As often with my recipes, these measurements are extremely approximate, particularly for the sauce ingredients. Start with this and add more to taste / consistency desired. Add cider as needed to keep a little bit of liquid, though you want it to thicken up some.
Ingredients
- 2 acorn squash
- 1 package tempeh
- 1 C cooked quinoa
- olive oil
- 3 red diablo peppers
- 3 small tomatoes
- 1/4 C cider
- 1 T maple syrup
- splash of liquid smoke
- 1 T Bragg's amino acid
- 3 T cashew butter
- 2 t apple cider vinegar
- 2 T minced garlic
- 2 t chopped fresh sage
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 450.
- Cut squash in half. Scoop out seeds. Place open side up in a Pyrex baking pan and brush tops with olive oil. Bake for 20-30 minutes, until flesh is relatively soft, but at this point it does not need to be cooked all the way through.
- While squash is baking, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat. Chop peppers and tomatoes and add to pan, saute. Then crumble the entire block of tempeh into the pan and continue to saute.
- Add all ingredients from cider to salt and pepper, and stir occasionally. Add quinoa last.
- Turn heat down to low, and let filling mixture warm while squash bakes.
- After the squash baked for the previously mentioned 20-30 minutes, remove from oven and fill halves evenly with the tempeh filling mixture.
- Return to oven for 15-20 minutes. Now you want the squash to cook to a point where the flesh is fully softened, providing no resistance when pressing a fork all the way in.
- Remove from oven and enjoy!!
Serving suggestion! :)
