Vegetarian sushi cubes with crispy tofu and glazed pumpkins

My newest small kitchen gadget, the Rice Cube, inspired me to make this dish. It turnes vegetarian sushi making into pure enjoyment! I have the feeling that you will be seeing many food cubes in my presentations in the future. My partner is more the sushi cooking type, but he has shown me his methods, and now I'm ready to publish a vegetarian sushi post.

I have been wanting to try more crispy tofu methods for a long time and have been contemplating what to combine with it. I thought that it would be good with a sushi style dish.

I also wanted to include a vegetable on the side, and pumpkins and squash suit well this combination. I had two munchkin pumpkins that I glazed with a teriyaki style glaze.

Crispy tofu

400 g tofu

1 tsp groundnut oil (for roasting)

1 tbsp mirin

½ cup semolina

3 tbsp groundnut oil (for frying)

Remove the excess liquid from the tofu and cut it into cubes. Brush an oven dish with groundnut oil and place the tofu cubes there. Bake them at 150C for one hour or more until you are happy with the firmness of the tofu cubes. The intention is to make them nice and dehydrated with a crispy surface, but still a soft middle.

After the baking, roll the tofu cubes in mirin and then semolina and fry them briefly in hot groundnut oil.

Glazed pumpkins

2 munchkin pumpkins or one medium sized pumpkin

1 tbsp groundnut oil

50 ml mirin

50 ml soy sauce

2 tbsp toasted sesame oil

3 tbsp maple syrup

1 tbsp miso

Cut the pumpkins into small wedges and remove the seeds. Brush them with groundnut oil and roast for about 30 minutes at 150C.

Make the glaze by carefully mixing mirin, soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, maple syrup and miso. Pour the glaze onto the pumpkins and roast them until the glaze has thickened and coated the pumpkin wedges. Stir them occasionally during the roasting.

Sushi cubes

1 cup sushi rice

1 ¼ cup water

1 tbsp brown rice vinegar

1 tsp sugary water

¼ tsp salt

1-2 tbsp green nori sprinkle

A few strips of sushi nori

Soak the rice in the water for 30 minutes and then simmer it for about 10 minutes until the water has absorbed. Drizzle some brown rice vinegar to it to taste and also add little water with dissolved sugar in it and a sprinkle of salt. Let it cool.

Shape cubes from the rice. I added green nori sprinkle to one half of the rice and wrapped nori strips around the plain ones.

Serve all components together. They all taste cold as well, but it's also nice when the tofu and glazed pumpkins are warm. This is also a great lunch for the next day.

Your VegHog

Crusted munchkin pumpkin slices with potato mash and salad

And it's pumpkin time again! I liked this dish very much and I think I made quite a cute presentation out of it. I absolutely love potato mash, it just goes with anything and whenever, and it really goes well with pumpkin. These crusted pumpkins are similar to the Crusted Harlequin squash wedges, a recipe inspired by Yotam Ottolenghi.

This is how you can prepare this dish.

The salad

Purple gem lettuce

Small tomatoes

Bread for homemade croutons

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

Nettle salt (or normal salt)

Black pepper

The pumpkins

1-2 munchkin pumpkins

Vegetable oil

Breadcrumbs

1 lemon's zest

Thyme

Rosemary

Parsley

Black pepper

The potato mash

300g potatoes

25g butter

100ml milk

2tsp salt

You can make the salad first as it can wait in the fridge for the rest to be prepared. I made my croutons of walnut bread, but you can use any nice bread that you have. Dice the bread and place the dices in an oven dish. Sprinkle olive oil and salt on them, stir and bake until crispy. Stir couple of times during the baking. Cut the tomatoes in half and the gem lettuce in slightly smaller pieces. Make a simple dressing of balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper and mix it into the salad. Place the croutons on the salad just before serving.

For the crusted pumpkins I used again the cute small munchkin pumpkins. Prepare a crust mix for the pumpkins by mixing breadcrumbs with thyme, rosemary, parsley, lemon zest and black pepper. Use fresh herbs if you have some as the herbiness is then more intense. Slice the pumpkins into thin slices and place them into an oven dish. Brush them with vegetable oil and sprinkle the herb crust on them. Bake the crusted pumpkin slices at 180C for about 30 minutes until the pumpkins are fully cooked and the crust is crispy.

Make the potato mash parallel to the crusted pumpkins. I normally put butter, milk and salt into my mash. For presentation I sprinkled nettle salt on the top of the mash.

Place all the components nicely on a plate for serving. This can be an autumnal vegetarian Sunday roast or just a nice dinner.

Stay hungry!

Your VegHog

Ricotta stuffed munchkin pumpkin with vegetable crisps

Munchkin pumpkins, those sweet mini sized pumpkins, are so cute and versatile in side or main dishes especially in this season. They simply make the perfect Halloween food and something that kids also enjoy. And as you can see, I bought a pile of them.

Today's recipe is an effortless ricotta stuffed munchkin pumpkin served with some vegetable crisps from the shop – easy! This recipe can be easily expanded for several pumpkins and this is how it's done.

Munchkin pumpkins

Ricotta cheese (about 30g per pumpkin)

1 garlic clove

Applewood smoky cheddar (optional)

Lemon & Pepper breadcrumbs

1 small bag of vegetable crisps (mine were parsnip, beetroot and sweet potato crisps)

Smoked pepper hummus (my recipe for this special hummus will be posted here soon)

Rocket

Cut a small lid off the pumpkin and remove the seeds. Chop the garlic finely and grate the smoky cheese. Mix the stuffing ingredients (ricotta, garlic, cheddar and breadcrumbs) together and fill the pumpkin with it. Place the lid back on.

Bake the pumpkin at 180C for about one hour until fully baked. Serve it on a bed of rocket with the vegetable crisps and hummus.

Enjoy the cosy autumn evenings!

Your VegHog