What Goes Well with Leftover Enchiladas? Pumpkin Soup!

Yes really. Especially when it's goat cheese & seitan chorizo enchiladas and spicy pumpkin soup!
This is a slightly modified recipe from a cookbook called "The Complete Vegan Cookbook" which is actually where the beginnings of my goat cheese enchilada recipe came from.

The recipe in the book is Pumpkin-Rice Soup with Sage & Allspice, and I encourage you to try it as written, but I'm posting what I actually ended up making (since I didn't have all the ingredients on hand, and I made only a partial batch, because I only had 1 cup pumpkin.)

1.5 (ish) cup vegetable broth
1 cup pumpkin
3 cloves minced garlic
1/6 cup basmati rice
1/2 tsp sage
1/4 tsp salt
a few sprinkles allspice
several grinds black pepper
1/3 cup almond milk
1 Tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup chopped roasted walnuts

In a stockpot, saute the minced garlic in a little oil until just a tiny bit crispy. Add the stock & pumpkin, cover and bring to a boil over medium-high heat, then add the rice, sage, salt, allspice, and pepper. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes, or until the rice is tender. Stir frequently. Add the almond milk and lemon juice and heat until steaming. Serve hot with roasted walnuts on top.

Makes 2 bowls, perfect for a second meal of...

Goat Cheese Enchiladas!
10 corn tortillas
1 package seitan chorizo (I love Upton's,) crumbled
half an onion, chopped
1 can green enchilada sauce
8 oz goat cheddar, grated

Saute the onions until clear, then add the crumbled seitan, and saute until a little browned. Remove from heat and set aside. Coat the bottom of a baking dish big enough for two rows of enchiladas with a thin layer of the sauce, and then pour a little sauce on a plate. Warm the tortillas and then dip both sides in the sauce on the plate, and fill with chorizo/onion mixture and goat cheddar. Roll and place seam down in the pan. I can get 5 enchiladas in 2 rows with this amount. Pour the remaining sauce on top of the enchiladas, then sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Cover with foil and bake at 350F for 20 minutes. Let stand, uncovered, for 5 minutes before serving- they're less gooey this way, and stay together. Great with beans & rice or Pico de Gallo chips & Tomatillo salsa.

Enjoy!!

Garden tomatoes for dinner

Garden tomatoes
Originally uploaded by zombie amelia

This year I grew four heirloom tomato plants from seed (I don't know which varieties they are, since the seed package was assorted heirloom tomatoes), and even though I can't enjoy tomatoes fresh anymore due to my allergies, I like to cook with them.

Tonight's dinner was a variation on something I make frequently- seitan with vegetables on pasta or rice topped with a little goat cheese.

This version started with a small garden onion, minced, sauted in olive oil with two cloves garlic, pressed. Add salt and pepper to your liking. Cook until the onions are clear and starting to brown. Add the crumbled seitan (this one was a tasty new variety we were trying, Upton's Italian sausage variety, which crumbled nicely.)

Saute the seitan with the onions for a few minutes, then add 10-12 sliced white mushrooms (or brown, I had white.) Mix and cook on medium heat until the seitan starts to brown and stick to the pan. You may have to add more olive oil as you stir. Add some chopped fresh basil (5-6 leaves) and a handful of pine nuts.

At this point, you should add the pasta to that pot of water you started boiling a while ago... I used angel hair, but you could use any number of things. This had a nice Italian thing going, so I went with that. Add the chopped tomatoes, there were 4 here, chopped coarsely, and cook with the seitan mixture until the pasta is done, about 5-6 minutes. The tomatoes should have just started breaking down and releasing their juices, but not be too soft and mushy. I like to cook them just until they start to break down because this is the freshest I can eat them.

Serve the seitan over the pasta and top with grated sharp cheddar goat cheese. Enjoy!

Stuffed Pumpkin, ala Julia Child

Stuffed Pumpkin, ala Julia Child
Originally uploaded by zombie amelia

So, my previous attempt at a cheese/bread stuffed pumpkin was too rich for my tastes. I grew a ton of pie pumpkins this year, so I wanted to find a better recipe for a stuffed pumpkin.

This one was AMAZING.

The original recipe was from Julia Child, and I modified it slightly with my ingredients.

Preheat oven to 400F

You need:
1 medium/large sized pie pumpkin
margarine (I love Earth Balance)
1 small chopped onion
1 tsp each thyme & sage
1 tsp salt + to taste
1/2 tsp (or more) pepper
4-5 oz Sharp Cheddar goat cheese- grated
3 slices oatmeal bread- torn into medium sized crumbs
2 cups no-chicken broth
4-5 peeled cloves of garlic, sliced into quarters

Saute the onion in the margarine, and add the seasonings & salt/pepper. Add the bread, and mix until the seasonings and margarine are absorbed by the bread. Clean out the pumpkin, and spread margarine around the entire inside of the pumpkin.
Put the bread/onion mixture in the pumpkin, add the cheese and mix it up (I added the cheese a little at a time and mixed) and then pour the broth in. Add the garlic cloves. Once the broth was in, it was easier to mix the entire thing up- so everything is mixed evenly within the pumpkin.

I put mine on foil in oven, which was good, since it seeped broth. Bake for about 30 minutes with the top off, until the mixture bubbles. Put the top on, and then bake for 2 hours. Test pumpkin with a fork before you finish cooking to make sure the pumpkin meat is tender and soft.

Let cool before eating, since it's going to be really hot.

Serve with peas!

Mushroom Spinach Quiche (with goat's milk & cheese)

Another old post from Vox:

I happened to have a frozen pie crust (since I do NOT make my own pie crusts) and I simply stuck it in the oven for a few minutes while the oven was preheating it- got the crust doughy and defrosted, since the original recipe wanted me to make a crust from scratch and such.

So- here it is:
Mushroom Spinach Quiche (adapted from Moosewood)
9" pie crust (frozen and thawed works nicely)
1.5 cups low fat goat's milk
1.5 cups (ish) of goat cheddar and goat jack cheese, grated
4 eggs
3 T flour
small container (8 oz) of white mushrooms, sliced
1/4 of a large onion
handful or two of spinach, chopped
1-2 T olive oil
1 clove garlic, pressed or diced
salt, pepper, dill, paprika
Mince/chop onion and saute with garlic in olive oil until translucent. Add sliced mushrooms, saute more, then add chopped spinach. Cook until cooked.
Meanwhile, beat eggs, milk, flour and some salt and pepper and dill together until smooth. Grate cheese, sprinkle about half of the cheese in the bottom of the unbaked pie crust, then top with the mushroom mixture, then more cheese, then pour the egg mixture on top. Add the remaining cheese to the top and sprinkle with paprika.
Bake 40-45 minutes at 375F until center is solid when the quiche is jiggled.

This turned out quite tasty. And, cow's milk free!

If you care about such things, the entire quiche (made with my ingredients) is about 1620 calories, so if you're really hungry and want your servings to be a quarter of the quiche, that puts you at 405 calories per serving.