Halloween party

 

We had a little 2-person Halloween party at home yesterday. It was quite cosy with our carved pumpkin lanterns lighting the balcony in the rain. I prepared some seasonal snacks for the evening: pumpkin face cheddar with charcoal crackers, colourful marmelades and orange cream chocolates. I also made spooky pumpkin face quesadillas with chilli-pepper tortillas and an oat rice, chilli, sweetcorn, pepper, carrot, cheese, onion and blue potato filling.

It was a nice evening in enjoying these snacks and I also got the opportunity to use my paper Halloween plates. Do you have any plans for tonight? Happy Halloween everyone!

 

Your VegHog

 

Sweet potato and pumpkin gnocchi

 

It’s almost time for Halloween, so I wanted to share a very seasonal gnocchi recipe with you. I made the orange coloured gnocchi with roasted sweet potato and crown prince squash. The squash can of course be substituted with other squash types or a pumpkin. The gnocchi are also plantbased.

Have you all been eating loads of squashes and pumpkins and are you also excited for Halloween? I have a couple of carved pumpkins on my balcony, so I’m getting pretty much into the mood.

 

Sweet potato and pumpkin gnocchi

Ingredients

1 large sweet potato

¼ crown prince squash

300 g wheat flour

75 g potato flour

1 tsp salt

1 tbsp vegetable oil

Method

Roast the sweet potato as a whole and the squash piece in the oven until done. Mash them and let them cool down. Mix the sweet potato and squash mash with the flours, salt and oil and lightly knead into a firm dough.

Shape gnocchi from the dough and boil them in water until they float on the surface. You can additionally fry them in little butter or oil, if you like. It adds some additional firmness and depth of flavour.

I served the gnocchi with crispy browned sage butter, cheese and side salad. What would you serve it with? And happy Halloween to all!

 

Your VegHog

Halloween party food

I didn't manage to make a range of spooky foods this year even though I was determined to manage it. I won't be having a Halloween party either, but I've been eating some nice Halloween-themed party foods lately nevertheless. I wanted to collect them to a post and share with you. All of these dishes are vegetarian and one of them is vegan.

I made these loaded vegetable nachos, as I think that nachos are always great party food whatever the occassion. These nachos were topped with char-grilled and roasted crown prince squash and red bell pepper, tomato-pepper-chilli sauce, black lentils and cheese. The best thing however will have to be these cheerful ghost plates.

I got the inspiration for this black garlic mac'n'cheese from my blogging friend Shaheen from Allotment 2 Kitchen blog, who posted a Black Garlic Macaroni Cheese Bake a few days ago. I showed Shaheen's recipe to my partner, and he wanted me to make this dish, so I did. I made mine slightly differently than Shaheen, as I didn't use any milk, but the pasta cooking water instead, and I didn't bake my mac'n'cheese either. I really loved the flavour and richness that the black garlic added to a regular mac'n'cheese. I might be adding some always into my future macaroni and cheeses, as it was such a good combination. I served some homemade black garlic breads on the side, and I also think that the wormy looking pasta worked well for a spooky result. Thank you so much Shaheen for this brilliant idea, my partner is also very grateful!

This is just an orange pizza that I made the other day, but I think it would fit well to some Halloween festivities. It's a cheddar, onion and red bell pepper pizza on a spelt thin crust. I pre-fried the onions and bell peppers for this pizza. I don't always do this with toppings, but these ones definitely benefited from it. Here are photos pre- and post baking.

These vegan mini hot dogs were surprisingly filling. I really liked the smaller veggie sausages from Aldi. They are incredibly cheap, and I have made a couple of vegan English breakfasts with them too. I only added some grated carrot and fried onions on the top of these hot dogs, as I didn't happen to have any suitable sauces at the time.

I'm going to write an own post about this crown prince squash soup and caramelised onion bread later, but also wanted to include it here, as it fits the theme. The soup was made from the same crown prince squash as the nacho toppings. I got a third dish out of the squash as well, that's how huge it was, and it was also very cheap.

I hope that some of these ideas could inspire you for Halloween-themed veggie cooking. Now I would just like to wish everyone a happy Halloween!

Your VegHog

Onion squash macaroni cheese

This is a very seasonal dish that would be quite nice to serve at a Halloween party. It's a macaroni cheese without milk, featuring roasted onion squash mash with the macaroni. However it's not fully vegan, as I still used regular cheese in it. I'm just constantly in lookout for alternative non-milky mac'n'cheese ideas, as my partner doesn't like them. I love that sort of creamy mac'n'cheeses as well, but now have to be more creative. The squash prevented the cheese from splitting with the rest of the sauce, so this was quite an successful version.

I enjoyed this version of mac'n'cheese very much, and will probably make it soon again in this spooky and dark season. Have you made any seasonal Halloween dishes or baking? Or do you have any tips for substitutes for milk or cream in a macaroni cheese bake?

Onion squash macaroni cheese

Ingredients

½ onion squash

Olive oil

200 g macaroni

2 onions

2 garlic cloves

2 tbsp potato flour

1 cup vegetable stock

200 g cheese

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Sprinkle of smoked paprika

½ cup breadcrumbs

Method

Peel and cut the squash into wedges. Brush them with oil and roast in the oven until done. Mash the roasted squash pieces.

Cook the macaroni in water until it's al dente.

Chop onions and garlic finely and sautée them in a pan in olive oil until soft. Add the potato flour and vegetable stock and stir until smooth.

Then slowly add the mashed squash and 2/3 of the cheese. Keep mixing so that the mixture gets smooth and doesn't split.

Season to taste and mix with the cooked macaroni. Put the mix into an oven dish, add the rest of the cheese on the top with the breadcrumbs, and bake at 180 C for about 20 minutes.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Squash faces and pumpkin beers

I wasn't sure if I would manage any Halloween related posts, as I've been on holiday and then had a busy weekend back. It always takes a while to get back to the normal cooking routine, although I'm really happy to be cooking at home again. I don't really celebrate Halloween, but find it quite intriguing, so I wanted to make a small starter dish to celebrate the season. Maybe the faces on my chilli-honey glazed butternut squash “pumpkins” weren't quite as scary as I intended, but they did taste good.

I also wanted to taste a few pumpkin beers, so here are my impressions of them. I already wrote a post about Beavertown Brewery's Stingy Jack Spiced Pumpkin Ale last year, so I'm not going to write about that one, even though I bought it again now.

The other two beers that I wanted to taste were Roadsmary's Baby and Pumpkin IPA.

Roadsmary's Baby 6.8% by Two Roads is an ale brewed with pumpkin and spices and aged in rum barrels with vanilla beans. It has a deep orange colour and smells fruity and of vanilla. The foretaste is slightly sour with some fruity esters and spiciness and there's a long aftertaste of vanilla and hint of Christmassy spices. This beer is quite drinkable considering the strength.

The Pumpkin IPA by Flying Dog 6.7% is an ale brewed with pumpkin purée and spices. It has a very spicy scent with maple and there are strong maple notes throughout. The aftertaste has a long hoppy bitterness with strong spices and there's a lot of pumpkin in the aftertaste. Again, there is no real taste of alcohol, so this beer seems more drinkable than expected.

Have a fine All Hallow's Eve!

Your VegHog

Honey glazed flying saucer squash with chipotle chili mash

This post is related to my #iwanttobelieve campaign and thereby also to yesterday's post. I'm using the other half of my funny flying saucer squash today. Please read more about it and have a look at the Flying saucer squash pies.

This dish is a great mix of sweet and spicy and smoky. I think that the honey glaze works very nicely with squash accentuating its natural sweetness, and chipotle and smoky cheese make a great extra flavour to a potato mash.

For the squash

½ flying saucer squash

2tbsp olive oil

2tbsp honey

About 10 fresh sage leaves

1tsp sea salt

For the mash

500g potatoes

1 dried chipotle chili

1 garlic clove

100g Applewood smoked Cheddar

1tsp sea salt / chipotle sea salt

Butter

Cut the squash into generous wedges along the star shapes of it. There's no need to peel it. Place the wedges into an oven dish and brush them lightly all over with olive oil. Roast them at 180-200C for about 30 minutes and sometimes turn them over.

Now also start the mash. Peel the potatoes and boil them in salted water until they are done, in approximately 30 minutes. Chop the chipotle and garlic finely and grate the cheese.

Prepare the glaze for the squash. Pour honey into a bowl and add about one tablespoon olive oil to it. Chop the sage finely and add it and and salt to the bowl.

When the squash is already mainly roasted, glaze it with the honey mix and put back into the oven for further 20 minutes or until you are happy with the glazing and the squash. Also now keep turning the wedges over occasionally and brush more glaze on them if needed.

Heat some butter in a pan and lightly fry the garlic and chipotle in there. When the potatoes are boiled, mash them and add the garlic, chili, salt and cheese to them. Mix to a smooth texture.

Serve the squash with the mash and enjoy! Happy Halloween everyone!

Your VegHog

Flying saucer squash pies

Maybe some of you, dear readers, have already seen my mysterious #iwanttobelieve tweets predicting the arrival of a flying saucer squash recipe. I obtained a magnificent flying saucer squash at the Arundel food festival and wanted to feature it as my this year's spooky Halloween ingredient par excellence.

I thought hard about it how to use this wonderful vegetable and I decided to make two different dishes, as that huge squash easily made two full meals, and this is the first of them. I wanted to make a hearty autumn pie and I think it turned out to be very tasty. The pastry is also homemade and is partly made of spelt flour. This recipe can be made with any squash or pumpkin in case you can't get hold of a flying saucer.

The pastry

150g spelt flour

150g wheat flour

150g butter

4-8tbsp cold water

The filling

½ flying saucer squash

1 cup red lentils

1 cloveless garlic (or 2-3 cloves of regular garlic)

2 shallots

1 cup oak matured Somerset vintage cider (or other dry cider)

1tbsp vegetable stock powder

Vegetable oil (for roasting the squash)

Olive oil

A bunch of fresh thyme sprigs

A small chunk of Sussex Charmer cheese

Salt

Black pepper

1 egg (for brushing the pastry)

Method

Make the pastry first. Mix the flours together and pinch soft butter cubes among the flour until the mixture reaches a similar texture to breadcrumbs. Add cold water for binding the dough and knead it even. Wrap the dough in cling film and let it rest in the fridge during the other preparations.

Cut the flying saucer in half and save the other half for later (another recipe is coming soon to this blog!). Peel it, remove the seeds and cut it into small cubes. Place the cubes into an oven dish and brush them with vegetable oil. Roast the squash at 180C for about 30 minutes until soft.

Parallel to this rinse the red lentils and boil them in water until soft. Add vegetable stock powder to the water for boiling.

In another large pan heat some olive oil and sweat the shallots and garlic. Then add the roasted squash and make a cider addition to the pan. Let it simmer and the cider evaporate. Then also add the lentils and season the pie filling with salt, pepper and generous amount of fresh thyme. Add some grated hard cheese and add more vegetable stock powder or cider if you want a heartier taste.

Then roll out the pastry and place it into one large baking tin or smaller tins or ramekins. Put the squash filling in and close the lid on them. Make some air holes on the lid, which can be decorative. Brush the pastry with a beaten egg and place also some more thyme leaves on the top. You can also brush the edges of the pie with the egg before placing the lid on. That way it will stick better to your main pie.

Bake the pie(s) at 200C for about 20-25 minutes. Enjoy and let the lovely pie goodness warm your heart!

Your VegHog