Holiday eats

Feels like just yesterday we were looking at ideas for Thanksgiving meals, right?  Despite the many lovely recipes in the NYTimes Vegetarian Thanksgiving compilations, my search for something featuring tempeh ultimately led me to the orange-maple tempeh at 101 Cookbooks.

The tempeh went perfectly with the wonderful array of traditional sides that my mom prepared, including mashed potatoes, dressing (AKA stuffing), mixed green salad, and whipped sweet potatoes (from my dad’s garden — candy sweet with no sugar added).  I doubled the recipe to insure we had enough for leftovers, which were delicious topped with the vegetarian gravy I made.

Still, our perusal of other holiday recipe ideas left us with a nice list of things to make later, including this Buckwheat Harvest Tart.  It looked labor- and time-intensive, so we kept postponing it, but I took advantage of my baby-free Monday last week and spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen, working with this guy.

Perhaps Matthew will share the real name in the comments, but I call it “the big warty squash.”  Less-than-attractive nickname aside, this is a delicious variety of winter squash, with lots of rich, flavorful flesh (and the seeds roast well, too).  I cubed some for the tart (along with some Silver Bell, another of our favorite squash varieties from this year), but I was left with quite a lot for roasting.  I followed my usual, fast and easy, slice and rub with coconut oil approach.

Roasted squash perfection — yum!  But not to be outdone, here’s the star of the show, pre-cheese sprinkling step and before oven time.

The various flavors came together so well here, showing the value of a good recipe.  Labor-intensive, but worth it!

We’re brainstorming ways to use the flavors of the filling in dishes other than tarts.  For starters, you could certainly omit the eggs and serve the cooked veggies over pasta or another grain.

After making this on Monday, I settled down to simpler meals for the rest of the week, and Matthew focused his attention on baking cookies, old favorites and a new-to-us variety.  More on those later . . . .