Vegie Head Recipes

These recipes comes from someone who takes vegetables as a way of living, turning any dish into something that can go head to head with any savoury dish, this will be my first post taken from Vegie Head.

Greek Stuffed zucchinis

Serves 4

-2 large zucchinis, sliced lengthways
-1 cup brown rice, cooked according to packet
-1 tbsp safflower oil
-1 onion, diced
-2 x 750ml jars passata (pureed tomato sauce)
-2 roma tomatoes, diced
-Juice of 1 lemon
-1/4 cup pitted Kalamata olives
-1/2 tsp Himalayan sea salt
-1/2 tsp raw coconut sugar
-1 garlic clove, minced
-4 fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
-1 fresh mint leaf, thinly sliced
-1/2 cup fresh parsley
-1/4 cup fresh coriander
-Fresh black pepper

-Scoop out the zucchinis into a large bowl and set the empty zucchinis and flesh aside
-In a heavy bottomed pan, saute the onion and garlic until translucent and the 2 jars of passata and tomatoes
-Add the salt, sugar and lemon juice, adjust to taste, then gently stir through the mint and basil
-At this point, take out half of the passata and put it aside
-Add brown rice and olives and allow to simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, and adding a small amount of water if needed
-Turn off the heat, and stir through the parsley and coriander
-Mix the zucchini flesh and tomato/rice sauce together and stuff the zucchinis- you can fill them to just over the edge
-Arrange them into a heat proof dish, and gently pour the other half of the sauce along the bottom of the zucchinis
-Bake at 200ºC for 30 minutes and serve with a fresh Greek salad

Vegie Stuffed Pumpkin

Serves 2

-One butternut pumpkin- we will use the round base for this recipe- you could also use a pumpkin sliced lengthways
-1/2 cup red quinoa
-1/2 cup white quinoa
-1 cup broccoli, diced finely
-1/2 cup zucchini, diced
-1 cup fresh parsley
-1 tsp turmeric
-1 clove garlic. minced
-1 tsp chilli flakes
-Fresh black pepper

-Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds
-Pierce the skin with a fork, and bake in a hot oven (180C) for 40 minutes, until tender
-In the meantime, rinse the quinoa and put in a pot with 2 1/2 cups of water
-Bring to a boil, and simmer for 15 minutes
-Add the broccoli and zucchini and cook for 5 more minutes
-Drain and stir in the turmeric, garlic, parsley, chilli flakes and pepper
-Once the pumpkin is cool enough to handle, scoop out the inside flesh- leave about 1/2 cm of flesh for effect
-Stir the scooped out pumpkin with the quinoa mix, and re-fill the pumpkin
-Put back in the oven for 5 minutes, just to heat
-Chop up some tomatoes or capsicum to garnish