Nicole Is Cooking

Jump to Comments

While grocery shopping before Thanksgiving, the November issue of Gourmet caught my eye. I had not picked up an issue in a while and they had done a vegetarian Thanksgiving menu so I decided to pick it up and take a look.

Their vegetarian entree looked quite tasty and suitably challenging so I announced I would be bringing Pumpkin Stuffed with Vegetable Stew to dinner at Fantôme Chocolat’s sister’s house. I figured if I could not find a suitable pumpkin to stuff I would add some winter squash to the stew or figure something else out. As luck would have it, when I hit the farmers’ markets the weekend before to do most of our Thanksgiving shopping, I found a lovely 10 pound Long Island Cheese Pumpkin to use. From the information I have dug up on it, it is an east coast heirloom pumpkin which got its name due to its resemblance to a cheese wheel (they do tend on the flatter side). The flesh is a deep orange and it is supposed to be an excellent pie pumpkin. In general, pumpkin is high in antioxidants, beta-carotene and potassium and low in fat and calories. They also have decent amounts of Vitamin C and other nutrients, such as Niacin, Vitamin E, Calcium and Iron.

For the vegetable stew, you first need to make a roasted vegetable stock so I recommend not trying to make the entire recipe in one day since it is a bit time consuming (see the cooks’ notes at the bottom of the recipe… you can make this over several days if you want). Both the stock and stew use a nice blend of seasonal root vegetables with the addition of some Roma tomatoes in the stock.

Roasted vegetables for the stock.

After roasting the stock vegetables, the pan gets deglazed with red wine.

Deglazing the pan.

The vegetables, pan deglazing items, water, some herbs, dried tomatoes, and dried mushrooms are simmered for the stock. When the stock is complete, it is then added to a roux to make the stew sauce.

The stew has seasonal roasted vegetables (carrots, fennel, celeriac, parsnips, shallots), mushrooms, roasted red pepper and seitan. Oddly, I was having a really difficult time finding seitan that had not already been flavored/ marinated when I was shopping so I made my own. It takes some time, but is really easy and inexpensive. I highly recommend the recipe from the Post Punk Kitchen. I really don’t think I will be buying seitan again after finding out how easy it is to make tasty seitan at home. And, it is really easy to flavor it however you want (I made mine very plain, omitting the garlic and lemon zest in the recipe since I wanted it to pick up the stew flavors).

Overall, it was a lot of work if done all at once (which I did not do) but absolutely delicious and beautiful too. The pumpkin flesh fell out easily when scooped with the stew and was very good.

My Dad frequently reads Gourmet and had been intrigued by the recipe too so was curious to hear how it worked out. When I declared it a success he asked if I would make it for Christmas.

From the same issue of Gourmet, I also made a Coconut Tart for dessert since Fantôme Chocolat’s sister and I are both fans of coconut. The recipe was from their Asian inspired Thanksgiving menu.

It also was quite good, if I do say so myself. I am usually not that good with pastry dough, but I made it work.

Fantôme Chocolat made a bunch of veggies for the day.

He made mashed potatoes that were lightened up by and given some added nutritional benefit of mashed orange cauliflower. We used a very minimal amount of milk and butter and then added some roasted vegetable stock I had left from the stew as well as some braised garlic I had handy (yum! for the recipe see my entry on Romanesco Sauce).

He also made green and white beans with shallots that were cooked for a bit in some balsamic vinegar.

And brussel sprouts! I never ate brussel sprouts until Fantôme Chocolat made them for me. He does a really nice job with a sautée/ steaming combination and the addition of lemon and rosemary.

He also had a small amount of cranberries so we simmered them on the stove top. I think we threw in some agave syrup and probably some Grand Mariner.

For the omnivores, Fantôme Chocolat’s sister brined and roasted a chicken that looked quite tasty.

Overall, a very satisfying and healthy (except for the tart!) Thanksgiving dinner.

As I mentioned, my Dad requested I make the pumpkin again for Christmas dinner (we were a big group that day so it was in addition to a stuffed Turkey breast and Roast Beef). I was out of the country for work until the evening of the 21st and wasn’t sure it was going to happen. But when I went to the farmers’ market on the morning of the 23rd, I once again found a nicely sized Long Island Cheese Pumpkin so I began gathering the needed ingredients. It went over quite well. Both my Dad and my sis-in-law’s Mom enjoyed it a lot. Sis-in-law’s Mom was quite surprised at how much she liked it and requested some to go. My brother and sister (both quite picky about vegetables and food with “too many ingredients”) even tried it. Neither of them liked the texture of the seitan. My brother did try some of the vegetables but wasn’t thrilled. I am just thrilled both of them tried some of it. Here are the pictures of the Christmas pumpkin.