Thai flavoured harlequin squash and lentil soup

Yay, the soup season is upon us! And also the squash and pumpkin season, it's so perfect! I am planning to cook many vegan squash soups before the autumn and winter are over. I often like giving soups Thai flavouring, as in my opinion it makes them even more warming and comforting. That is exactly what I did with this soup. I combined harlequin squash, carrots and red lentils and added some Thai flavours to them. I served the soup with rustic homemade seedy spelt rolls.

Ingredients

1 small or ½ larger harlequin squash

2 carrots

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

2 cm fresh ginger

1 small chilli

Olive oil

500 ml vegetable stock

½ cup red lentils

1 bay leaf

½ tsp ground coriander

½ tsp ground cumin

3-5 tbsp soya sauce

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

160 ml coconut cream

Handful fresh coriander

Method

Cut the squash and carrots into pieces and chop the onion, garlic, ginger and chilli finely. First cook the onion in olive oil until soft and then add the garlic, ginger and chilli. After a moment, add the squash and carrot pieces and cook for a few minutes.

Then add the vegetable stock, red lentil, bay leaf and season. Let the soup simmer.

Once the flavours have blended nicely and the squash, carrots and lentils are cooked, add the coconut cream and fresh coriander. Let cook some more, purée and serve warm.

I want to share this recipe with this month's No croutons required vegetarian soup and salad cooking challenge. The challenge is hosted this month by Lisa from Lisa's Kitchen and co-hosted by Jacqueline from Tinned Tomatoes.

Have a pleasant Saturday evening!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash risotto

Who is happy with me about the proper squash and pumpkin season starting? I can see many soups, stews and casseroles in my future and it makes me very happy indeed. I really love autumn, the colours, the food, the atmosphere. It's still warm here now, but I'm not sad that the summer will be ending soon. What are your feelings about the autumn (of course not all my readers are facing autumn at this time)?

I haven't made a proper real non-pearled-spelt risotto for ages it feels, but when I got a hold of some harlequin squashes, I thought it's time. I don't think that a vegetarian risotto ever gets boring, as there are so many possible variations. I added a little hint of chilli to this recipe.

Ingredients

1 l vegetable stock

Few dried porcini mushrooms

½ harlequin squash

1 yellow bell pepper

1 onion

3 garlic cloves

1 small chilli

Olive oil

15 g butter

1 cup arborio rice

1 cup dry white wine

Salt and pepper to taste

Grated vegetarian pasta cheese

Pine nuts and tomato slices for serving

Method

Heat the vegetable stock in a separate saucepan and add the crushed porcini muchrooms to the stock.

Cut the squash into cubes and the bell pepper into slightly smaller cubes. Chop the onion, garlic and chilli finely and start cooking the onion in olive oil. Once it's lightly browned and soft, add the garlic and chilli and cook for a couple of minutes more.

Add the squash and bell pepper cubes into the mix and again let cook for a few minutes. Then add the butter to the pan followed by the arborio rice. Mix for a few minutes and then add the white wine. Let it mostly absorb.

Add a few ladles of the vegetable stock and let simmer under the lid by stirring often. Also keep making more stock additions before the risotto can dry out.

Season to taste. Once you are happy with the flavours and textures, serve with some sprinkled vegetarian pasta cheese on the top and enjoy.

I would like to share the recipe with this month's Credit Crunch Munch as a frugal recipe. The challenge is hosted this month by Michelle from Utterly Scrummy Food For Families and co-hosted by Helen from Fuss Free Flavours. The reason for this is mainly that I was able to use end of two risotto rice packets (no idea why both were open!) and also the vegetables had been around for a while waiting to be cooked. I didn't want them to go to waste. A risotto can be quite an economical dish, as you don't need too many things to make a very filling meal.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash tarts

After a long while I got my paws on a harlequin squash again. I was quite happy about it, as we’ve had a bit of a squash variety shortage in our shops ever since last summer throughout the autumn and winter. It seemed that only butternut squash was ever available, maybe coquina, if we were lucky. So now I was very excited to cook this harlequin squash and ended up making two dishes from it. The first half I used for these summery tarts and the other half for a small vegan squash and red lentil soup. As I pre-roasted the squash for the tarts, it got slightly smoky although it’s quite sweet otherwise. I also added some warming cumin seeds with squash, as I really like the combination.

These are very simple and quick tarts to make, but so nice to enjoy on a summer’s evening. Have a look at my recipe for two harlequin squash tarts below. I think these would also be nice as smaller tartlets to be enjoyed at parties.

Ingredients

½ harlequin squash or 1 small one

1 red onion

1 garlic clove

Olive oil

150 g grated cheddar and mozzarella

Sprinkle of salt

Sprinkle of ground black pepper

Sprinkle of cumin seeds

320g puff pastry

Method

Cut the harlequin squash into thin wedges, brush with olive oil and roast in the oven for about 10 minutes until they are not fully softened yet, but have some roasting marks. Set them to side.

Cut the onion into thin half rings and chop the garlic finely. Cook them in olive oil in a pan for a few minutes.

Prepare the puff pastry by rolling it out and cutting it into two rectangles. Score the edges with a pastry cutter, but don’t cut the pastry fully through. Don’t put any filling over the edges, then they will rise nicely shaping beautiful edges for the tarts.

Place the onions and garlic onto the pastry followed by the cheese and harlequin squash wedges. Season with salt, pepper and cumin seeds.

Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until golden brown.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash, lentil and carrot soup with Thai flavours

I really adore spicy Thai flavours in a soup (and other dishes!) and felt like it was time to cook such a soup again. It has still been fairly chilly here, which is weird, as it's soon March. Well I'm not complaining, because I still have the excuse to cook wonderful winter food.

So I have made similar soups to this many times, but once again I altered the recipe slightly. I used harlequin squash as the main ingredient, but also added carrots and red lentils to the soup to give it a bit more substance. This was such a comforting soup also due to the fragrant fresh Thai basil and coriander and here's how it was made.

Ingredients

2 onions

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 red chillies

4 garlic cloves

2 cm ginger (roughly same amount as garlic)

1 harlequin squash

1 l vegetable stock

½ cup red lentils

4 carrots

1 lemongrass stalk

3 kaffir lime leaves

160 ml coconut cream

Juice of ½ lime

Soy sauce to taste

1 tsp palm sugar

Handful of Thai basil

Handful of fresh coriander

Method

Chop the onions and cook in vegetable oil until they are soft.

Add the finely chopped garlic, ginger and chilli and cook for about one minute more.

Cut the harlequin squash into cubes and the carrots into slices and add them into the pan.

Sauté them for a while and then add the vegetable stock followed by the lentils.

Add the finely chopped lemongrass and kaffir lime leaves.

Let the soup simmer under the lid at moderate heat.

After a while also add the coconut cream into the soup.

Season the soup with lime juice, soy sauce and palm sugar.

Chop fresh coriander and Thai basil and add them to the pan towards the end.

Once the squash, carrots and lentils are soft, purée the soup and taste if any more seasoning needs to be added.

Serve warm and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash and halloumi salad

How about a salad just before the weekend? In this salad I combined roasted harlequin squash wedges and pan-fried halloumi with heirloom tomato, gem lettuce and spinach. It was quite a nice and filling salad, just perfect for a weekday.

Ingredients

1 small harlequin squash

Olive oil for roasting

250 g halloumi

Vegetable oil for frying

1 large heirloom tomato

1 gem lettuce

50 g spinach

Olive oil + balsamic vinegar + salt + pepper for the dressing

Method

Cut the harlequin squash into wedges, brush them with olive oil and roast in the oven.

Cut the halloumi into cubes and fry them in vegetable oil until golden brown.

Cut the heirloom tomato into slices and also cut the gem lettuce.

Mix the dressing ingredients well together.

Combine all the components on a plate and enjoy!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash twirls

I wanted to make a squash dish that could potentially be served at Christmas. I planned this recipe in my head and even made some notes on my way home from work on the train. I could definitely see these squash twirls on the Christmas table and would gladly eat them. I got inspiration for this dish from several twirl recipes I guess, but I still don't think that I have seen anything exactly like this. I was first planning a squash Wellington, but these seemed like more fun. The Wellingtons can always come next year.

In these twirls I really loved the sage and cumin flavours coming through with the sweetness of the squash. Other squash types can also be used for this recipe, I just wanted to use my harlequin now. So here's the recipe.

Ingredients

1 harlequin squash

2 tsp vegetable oil

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

1 tsp cumin seeds

80 g spinach

3 garlic cloves

Handful of fresh sage leaves

25 g butter

100 g grated Cheddar

Handful of toasted pine nuts

320 g puff pastry

1 egg

Method

Cut the squash into cubes and remove the seeds. Brush the cubes with vegetable oil and roast in the oven until done. Mash the cubes, season with salt and pepper and let cool.

Chop the garlic finely and cook in oil until done. Add the spinach to the pan and wilt. Remove any excess liquid and let cool.

Prepare the brown sage butter by cooking the sage leaves in butter until they are crispy. Simmer them only at low/medium heat so that the butter doesn't burn. The butter should turn brown by the end of this. Mix the sage butter into the squash mash.

Roll out the puff pastry into a rectangle shape, or be lazy like I am and buy it readily rolled out in that shape.

Spread the squash mash onto the puff pastry, followed by the spinach, cheese and pine nuts. Roll it up into a roulade and cut slices from it. You can decide the thickness yourself.

Place the slices cut side down on a baking tray, beat the egg and brush the twirls with it. Bake them at 200C for about 25-30 minutes.

You can enjoy these twirls either cold or warm. Actually they might have been even a little bit better cold.

Have a good weekend!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash spelt risotto with halloumi

I was happy to obtain some harlequin squashes again, and decided to make a spelt risotto with one of them. A spelt risotto is a wonderful weekday dish even though it takes slightly longer to make. I'm always so happy to have some of it left to take with me to work. This is a very filling and tasty dish and I can only recommend pearled spelt. However I just noticed how many spelt dishes I have posted again recently and should use some other main ingredients soon. I promise that it will be the case! First, here's today's recipe.

Ingredients

1 harlequin squash

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1 bell pepper

1 tbsp olive oil

20 g butter

1 cup pearled spelt

1 glass white wine

1 l vegetable stock

Salt to taste

Ground black pepper to taste

40 g vegetarian pasta cheese

250 g halloumi + 1 tsp vegetable oil (optional)

Method

The method to this dish is my basic risotto method, nothing complicated about it, just some patience is needed.

Heat the vegetable stock in a separate pot.

Chop the harlequin squash into cubes. Also chop the onion, garlic and bell pepper.

Heat olive oil in a pan and start cooking the onion there for a few minutes. Then add the bell pepper and garlic and cook for further couple of minutes followed by the harlequin squash.

Add the butter and pearled spelt into the pan and mix for a few moments. Then add the wine and let it absorb.

Add a few ladles of the hot vegetable stock and let simmer under the lid. Stir often and keep making stock additions.

When all the components are cooked nicely and the flavours have blended, season the dish and add some grated vegetarian pasta cheese to it.

Serve with pan-fried halloumi slices like I did, if you feel like it. In that case no salt addition is needed to the risotto, or just a little bit.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Chanterelle and harlequin squash spelt risotto

Here comes another harlequin squash recipe of mine. I coupled it with another seasonal treat, chanterelles, and made a spelt risotto with them. I'm not fortunate enough to get fresh chanterelles at the moment, but definitely do use them instead of dried ones, if you can get some. Otherwise this is quite a basic risotto recipe, rice of course substituted by my favourite, pearled spelt.

These are the things you'll need and the instructions to make it are below.

½ harlequin squash (or a whole small one)

25 g dried chanterelles (or other wild mushrooms, for example porcini would be fine)

1 large shallot

2 garlic cloves

1 l vegetable stock

1 tsp chanterelle fond

1 tbsp olive oil

25 g butter

1 dl dry white wine

1 cup pearled spelt

Fresh savory to taste

1 tsp salt

½ tsp ground black pepper

30 g mature cheddar

Cut the harlequin squash into cubes and remove the seeds.

Soak the chanterelles in water for about 10 minutes. After that, drain them well.

Chop the shallot and garlic finely.

Heat the vegetable stock.

Heat olive oil in a large pan and cook the shallots and garlic until soft. Then also add the harlequin squash cubes and chanterelles to the pan. Cook for a further couple of minutes.

Add the butter to the pan and then the pearled spelt. Cook again for a couple of minutes and make the white wine addition. Let the wine mostly evaporate, and then also add a few ladles of the warm vegetable stock.

If you can get chanterelle fond somewhere, add it to the pan. Alternatively you can also use the soaking water of the mushroom for some extra mushroom taste.

Let the risotto simmer under the lid and keep stirring it and making vegetable stock additions before the pan dries out.

Cook until the spelt is soft, or I prefer al dente, and season with savory, salt and pepper. Season to taste, and add even more wine, if you think it's needed.

Mix in the cheese before serving. I also made some cheddar crisps as decorations on the top.

Enjoy warm! The taste usually gets better when heated up the next day, but I'm rarely patient enough to leave any.

Your VegHog

Roasted harlequin squash and courgette pie

So the squash season is well under way, and of course I've already been purchasing some and planning new recipes with them. I really love this season and can't wait to cook more with these fine ingredients. I'm very excited to share more autumnal recipes with you. I think I'll need to visit a large farmers' market soon to get many different kind of squashes.

The cute harlequin squashes have also appeared to the shops, so I made this cheesy pie with roasted harlequin squash and courgette, which was very well received by my eaters. Courgettes are summer squashes after all, and this one was produced in my own garden, which is always lovely. The harlequin squash and courgette tasted really good together, especially with the herb savory in the pie.

You can make either one large pie or several smaller pies with these ingredient amounts. Of course there's more fiddling with the pastry involved, if you choose to make small ones. I was lazy this time and bought a ready made and even readily rolled out pastry.

Ingredients

1 harlequin squash

1 courgette

200 g potatoes

2 shallots

3 garlic cloves

Olive oil for roasting and frying

Handful of fresh savory

Ground black pepper to taste

Salt to taste

500 g shortcrust pastry

250 g extra mature cheddar

1 egg

Method

Cut small cubes (about 1,5cm x 1,5cm) from the squash, courgette and potatoes. Place the vegetable cubes into a roasting tin and brush them with olive oil. I put each vegetable type into their own tins, because the roasting length can vary for the different vegetables. Turn the veg occasionally during the roasting and roast them at 200 C for roughly 25 minutes until they are soft with roasting marks.

Coarsely chop the shallots and finely the garlic and cook them in olive oil until soft. Add the roasted vegetables to the pan and season the pie filling with fresh savory, ground black pepper and salt.

Roll out shortcrust pastry thinly and place it into a pie dish. Cut off the excess pastry on the sides and cut a lid of suitable size. I made again some nice hedgehog and mushroom decorations for the top from excess pastry.

Fill the shortcrust pastry with the filling and cheese. Put a layer of the filling and then cheese onto the pastry, and repeat until the pie dish is full. Then close the lid and brush the pastry with a beaten egg and make a couple of breathing holes into the lid.

Bake the pie at 180C for about 30 minutes until the pastry is baked crispy and golden brown. A larger pie might need a longer baking time.

I hope you'll enjoy the squash season as much as I do! There will be many recipes to follow.

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash stuffed with couscous

Harlequin squash is a versatile little vegetable as it's a nice and mild squash. I have already published several harlequin squash recipes here, but wanted to make something new with it this time. So I decided to roast and stuff it with couscous, which actually made a great vegan meal.

Ingredients

1 harlequin squash

1 romano pepper

3tbsp soya mince

1 shallot

1 garlic clove

Olive oil

Soya sauce

1/2dl couscous

Vegetable stock powder

Oregano

Salt

Pepper

Method

Cut a lid off your squash, remove the seeds, place the lid back on and brush the squash with olive oil and roast it in the oven on its own for about 30 minutes at 180C.

In the meanwhile chop the pepper, shallot and garlic finely. Hydrate the soya mince by adding water, vegetable stock powder, little olive oil and soya sauce to it, and let it hydrate for about 10 minutes. It's important to remember that the amount of stuffing that you will need will be heavily depending on the size of your squash. I had pretty much a medium one and quite a bit fitted in. But also remember that you can eat that couscous combined with other stuff as well in case you have too much of the stuffing.

So in order to make the stuffing, slowly fry the pepper, shallot and garlic in olive oil at medium heat and also prepare the couscous. Couscous is very simple to make, just take same amount of couscous and water. Bring the water to the boil and once it's boiling take it off the heat and add the couscous into it. Let it rest for about 10 minutes and then the couscous should be done. I added some vegetable stock powder to the couscous water as well.

Remove the excess liquid from the soya mince and add it to the pepper pan and fry for a while. Season the mix with salt, pepper and oregano and also add the couscous to it and mix.

Then take the pre-roasted squash out of the oven and stuff it with the seasoned couscous. Bake for further 30 minutes or until the squash is soft.

Then enjoy this simple winter warmer!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash and new potato soup

Would you like to make a vegan soup for a change? I certainly would, once again... This is a super easy recipe, so there are no excuses for not making this.

The star of this soup is one single harlequin squash, and new potatoes make a good company for it indeed. As my regular reader you might know that I recently detected the harlequin squash, found it to be lovely and now constantly want to make dishes with it. So here we go!

Ingredients

1 harlequin squash

300g new potatoes

1 large onion

2 garlic cloves

2 salad onions

Vegetable stock powder

Lemon and pepper bread crumbs

Vegetable oil

Black pepper

Salt

Method

Cut the new potatoes in half, or in several smaller pieces in case they are a bit larger. Cut the harlequin squash into small cubes. Be careful when making the first cuts as the squash can be tough.

Then chop the onion, garlic and salad onions. Prepare the vegetable stock.

Heat oil in a saucepan and fry the onion and garlic briefly. Add the potatoes and fry them for a few minutes. Then also add the squash and most of the chopped salad onions, save some of them as garnish.

Add the vegetable stock and let it all simmer under a lid for about 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.

Season with salt and pepper once the potatoes and the squash are cooked soft. Then puree the soup.

Garnish with salad onions and lemon and pepper bread crumbs, then serve the soup with some nice bread. I paired the soup this time with this artisan crispbread.

Enjoy!

Your VegHog

Harlequin squash risotto with lemon courgette and radish flower salad

A squash risotto makes a pretty much perfect meal for vegetarians. I can never resist a good vegetarian risotto and sometimes it's good to move on from the typical mushroom risotto. I previously told you how I detected harlequin squashes and have been a fan ever since. Today I'm making a risotto with them and I serve a fresh lemon courgette and radish flower salad made out of my own garden's produce with it.

The salad:

1 small courgette

Lemon juice

Radish flowers

Olive oil

Make the side salad first. Slice the courgette into very thin long slices. You can do this with a cheese slicer or a peeling knife. Heat some olive oil in a pan and quickly and lightly fry the courgette bands in there. Squeeze some lemon juice on them and sprinkle radish flowers on the top before serving. Radish flowers have a lovely peppery flavour, so sometimes it's nice to let them grow to flower, and edible flowers make a wonderful food decoration anyway.

The risotto:

2 cups arborio rice

1 harlequin squash

1 onion

2 garlic cloves

1l vegetable stock

1 cup dry white wine

Vegetarian pasta cheese

50g butter

Olive oil

Parsley

Pepper

Salt

Then carry on with risotto making. Chop the squash into small cubes for the risotto. Also chop the onion and garlic and prepare the vegetable stock. You can make your own stock from scratch, which requires a bit more effort but also pays off, you can buy a ready made one or mix some with vegetable stock powder. I prefer the powder, because it's easy to always have around and make quickly, as I use large quantities of vegetable stock. I normally add fresh parsley to the stock that I use for a risotto.

Heat olive oil in a pan and fry the onion and garlic. When they are glossy add the butter, let it melt and add the arborio rice. Stir until the rice is translucent and then make the white wine addition. Let the wine evaporate and add some of the vegetable stock to the pan.

Let the risotto simmer under the lid and stir it often. After about 15 minutes add the squash and more vegetable stock and simmer until the rice is al dente and the squash is cooked. Season with salt and pepper and grate vegetarian pasta cheese (vegetarian parmesan) into the pan. At this stage add more parsley, wine or butter if needed.

Serve with more vegetarian pasta cheese on the top and with the side salad. Enjoy!

Your VegHog