Autumn, and it’s pumpkin season. This amazing vegetable has always been interesting to me. So many unusual shapes and sizes, different colors, it grows almost everywhere and so many different dishes you can make with pumpkin! Pumpkin is not my favorite vegetable, but I really love when there is pumpkin at home – its color pleases my eyes, and the shape calls it to touch it)))
Pumpkin – a treat for Halloween
This year I decided to cook something special for Halloween. Here’s a recipe of pumpkin stuffed with mushrooms, rice and lentils. And the highlight of this recipe is homemade vegan cheese! Particular my recipy is inspired by my sister, who makes amazing pizza with vegan mozzarella.
Although this recipe assumes 1.5 hours of spent time, most of this time the pumpkin sits in the oven and does not require any attention from you. If you plan everything well, put the rice and lentils to cook and in the meantime fry the onions and mushrooms with spices – then it will take only 30 minutes active time. As a result, you will have such a spectacular pumpkin on your plate!
Vegan cheese
The cheese is based on silken tofu, cashews and tapioca starch. If you don’t have silk tofu, you can use more cashews instead ( instead of 0.5, use 1 cup of cashews). Tapioca starch is the ingredient that makes vegan cheese viscous, so it’s an important ingredient that’s difficult to replace in this recipe. But if you don’t have this starch, you can use a different vegan cheese recipe. For example, in my recipe of vegan lasagna I use cheese sauce based on boiled potatoe, cashews and carrot.
How to store Pumpkin Stuffed with Mushrooms
Pumpkin is good when it is hot. It may seem difficult to warm it up after refrigirating, but it’s not! It gets warm very quickly if you pour a little bit of water into a saucepan, put the pumpkin in it and close the lid. Steam it for 5-10 min at low heat and it will be nice and warm. Pumpkin can be stored in the refrigerator up to 3 days. But if necessary, the it can be stored longer: it tolerates freezing as well.
Vegan Stuffed Pumpkin with Mushrooms
Equipment
- Oven
Ingredients
- 0.5 cup Rice
- 0.5 cup Lentils
- 1 tbsp Oil (optional)
- 400 g Mushrooms (champignons)
- 2 medium Onions
- 4 pcs Sun-dried tomatoes
- 2 cloves Garlic
- 0.5 tsp Nutmeg
- 0.5 tsp Allspice Pepper
- Salt to taste
- 2 pcs 1-kg sized Pumpkins
Vegan Cream Cheese
- 0.5 cup Cashew
- 0.5 cup Silken tofu
- 1.5 tsp Tapioca starch
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- 2 tbsp Nutritional Yeast (optional)
- 1 dash Salt
- 100 ml Water (or as needed)
Instructions
- Cook lentils and rice separately. I use brown rice and cook it in water in proportions 1:2. Same as for lentils.
- Preheat the pan and add oil. Dice the mushrooms and fry them on medium heat for about 10 min stirring. Then add chopped onions and garlic. Fry for another 10 min. Add spices.
- Soak sun-dried tomatoes for 5 min in hot water, then mince them and add to mushrooms.
- In a large bowl mix rice, lentils and mushrooms together.
- Cut the top of the pumpkin and remove the seeds.
- Stuff the pumpkin with filling, leaving some space for vegan cheese.
- Mix all ingredients for vegan cream cheese in a blender and pour the resulting mixture to the pumpkins.
- Close the “lid” and bake for 60 min at 180’C , until a fork can easily be stuck into the thickest part.
- Enjoy!
Video
Nutrition facts
Notes
Vegan Cream Cheese. If you don't have silken tofu - replace it with another half of cup cashews. Tapioca starch is a component that makes vegan cheese viscous, so it is an important ingredient, that is hard to replace in this recipe. However, you can use another recipe of vegan cheese. For example in cheese sauce for Vegan Lasagna, I use boiled potato to make it viscous. Nutritional Yeast gives cheesy flavour, but it is not important for consistency. If it is not available/affordable for you, you can use spices: dried onions, dried garlic, and white pepper instead.My Recommendations
Nutritional yeast gives a cheesy flavor, but not significantly affects the consistency. I order Natura Frugola Nutritional Yeast on Amazon, because I want unfortified with B12 and Folic Acid Nutritional yeast. I get B12 with supplements, and there is enough folate in vegetables and fruits, while it’s synthetic form (folic acid) is toxic. If nutritional yeast is not available/affordable for you, you can use these spices instead: dried onions, dried garlic, and white pepper in this recipe (0.5 teaspoon of each).
Do you like this recipe?
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Have a nice day!
🌱❤️🙏
Nice idea)