We’re into the season of veggie harvest and hearty soups! Food writer Chris Perrin brings two new vegetarian recipes to the table (haha!) to keep good company with your soup bowl… If you’ve been following his tasty contributions here each month, you’ll know that Chris has a cook’s certification from the Kansas City Culinary Institute, writes for BIAO Magazine, food-blogs at Blog Well Done, and is working on his own vegan cookbook. Enjoy!   ~ Jen

Pumpkin Panini and Apple-Seitan Sandwich

Despite the fact it signals the end of the growing season, Fall is the time for one last culinary celebration. Gone are the spring vegetables, the tomatoes, and the peaches. Still, every autumn, the Earth erupts forth in a great bounty of fruits and vegetables in such great quantities that the ground must know it will produce nothing for the next five or six months.

Okay, that might be a little overly dramatic, but how else can you explain the flood of apples, cranberries, pumpkins, squash, and other gourds that invade grocery stores across the country every October? The problem, though, is that most of Fall foods are usually thought of as desert (pumpkin pie) or are much maligned (cranberry “sauce” from a tin can.) Even the most inventive thing done with the mighty apple tends to be chopping it up and throwing it into a salad.

Photo: jslander

That all changes today. Today, we are going to elevate Fall fare into the fantastic. We are going to make sandwiches! (And they’re going to be veg friendly, too.)

Pumpkin Panini

Pumpkin is a nutritious vegetable that really does not get the credit it deserves as a savory ingredient. When roasted it has a satisfying, meaty flesh that has a subtle earthy flavor and is not nearly as sweet as you might think. This particular sandwich is paired with good mozzarella cheese, sun dried tomatoes, and basil for a pumpkiny twist on an Italian favorite.

• 1 small sugar pie pumpkin or about a pound of regular pumpkin
• 6 tablespoons olive oil
• 16 sundried tomatoes
• 12 basil leaves
• 1 loaf of vegan bread, cut into half inch slices
• 4 tablespoons of vegenaise or mayonnaise
• 1 medium tomato, sliced thinly
• 1 cup of shredded mozzarella (vegan or regular)

Preheat your oven to 450 degrees.

Prepare the Pumpkin

Wash the outside of the pumpkin thoroughly and pat dry. Cut into quarters and remove the seeds and stem. Coat with 3 tablespoons of olive oil and season lightly with salt and pepper.

Bake the pumpkin for forty minutes or until fork tender. Remove and set aside to cool. Once cool, cut into thin slices roughly the same width as the tomato. You may choose to remove the pumpkin’s peel or leave it on as you choose.

Make the Spread

As the pumpkin is roasting, prepare the sun dried tomato mix. The idea is to have a chunky spread, not a sauce. To make it, put the sun dried tomatoes, two tablespoons of the tomatoes’ oil, and the basil into a food processor and pulse. Add the olive oil one tablespoon at a time until it reaches a consistency you like.

Make the Panini

Construct the sandwiches by taking a slice of bread and spreading a tablespoon of vegenaise on one side and a quarter of the shredded cheese on the other. Starting this way will help to water proof the bread for the cooking ahead.

Stack the pumpkin, one-quarter of the sun dried tomato spread, and two slices of tomatoes on the cheese side in that order. Sprinkle a little kosher salt on the tomato and top with the other slice of bread.

Finally, to make this a panini, pull out a skillet and coat in a bit of your favorite nonstick cooking spray or olive oil. When the pan gets hot, put two sandwiches on it and press them with a second skillet or a cookie sheet weighted down with cans. Cook this way for two minutes, then flip sandwiches and cook them weighted down for two more minutes. If the mozzarella is not fully melted, put the sandwich in the oven for a few minutes.

Serve with pumpkin bisque for an awesome pumpkin meal.

Apple/Seitan Sandwiches

Photo: mharvey75

Many years ago, before I stopped eating meat, my friend V introduced me to this sandwich, which she made using good mild summer sausage. I have changed it to use seitan, my favorite of the vegan “faux meat” products.

• 1 package store bought seitan
• 2 tablespoons sausage spice mix or 1 tablespoon each of black pepper and thyme and a pinch of red chili flake
• ½ cup of Dijon mustard
• ½ cup of apple cider vinegar
• Hard rolls or French bread cut into quarter inch slices
• 1 apple, cut into long slices
• 4 slices Swiss cheese (vegans: use vegan parmesan)

The first thing to do is change the flavor profile of the seitan slightly. Because seitan is an Asian dish, it is normally flavored with soy sauce, but that flavor can be lessened by boiling the seitan. Also, boiling tends to soften seitan and make it easier to chew.

To do this, bring a pot of water to boil. Use water, not broth, but flavor the water with sausage spice mix. Boil the seitan for about 5 minutes. Take it out of the water and bring back to room temperature.

While the seitan is cooling, mix the mustard and the cider vinegar in a bowl with a whisk.

Construct the sandwiches by covering the bottom of a roll or a piece of bread with seitan and adding a piece of cheese, a few slices of apple, and topping with the mustard/vinegar mix.

For more of what is going in Chris’ lunchbox, on his dinner table, and on his party menus, as well as thoughts on food and culture, food in the media, and even the occasional recipe featuring meat, check out Chris’ food blog, Blog Well Done.

Here’s a new favourite summertime supper recipe — perfect for when those patio tomato plants are being just a bit too generous with their fruitful bounty.

Tiny tomatoes are apparently custom-made to be roasted with garlic, olive oil and balsamic vinegar, then tossed with lovely greens: the late-season regrowth of baby spinach and herbs fresh from the garden — and luscious Asiago cheese!

Vegetable – Asiago Pasta

3 cups cherry tomatoes or grape tomatoes, cut in half
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 cloves garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
1 bag (about 4 cups) baby spinach leaves
1 pkg 450g spaghettini (whole wheat)
1/2 cup shredded Asiago cheese
1/4 cup fresh chopped basil or parsley (we prefer basil)

Photo credit: ms.Tea

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Toss the tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, oil, garlic, salt and pepper. Spread them on a foil-lined baking sheet and roast 20 to 30 minutes or until the tomatoes are shrivelled up and lightly browned.

Scrape tomatoes and juices into large bowl, and toss in the baby spinach.

Prepare the pasta according to the package directions, or to your own taste.

Toss the cooked pasta with the roasted tomatoes and spinach mixture, Asiago, and basil or parsley.

Serve warm, with extra cheese.

This recipe serves 4-6, unless you’re very hungry or (like me) very very keen on Asiago-flavoured healthy pasta dishes!

Notes:

Asiago cheese is the perfect taste complement for the other flavours, by the way, so don’t even think about cheaping out and trying to substitute another type of cheese! Yes, I know Asiago is a bit more pricey than some cheeses, but really… sometimes you’ve just got to go for the real thing.

I’ve also faked this recipe fairly successfully with dried basil but it’s just not quite the same — so, please, do spring for the fresh green bunches at the grocery store, if you don’t happen to grow your own basil. Parsley is also acceptable, but really it’s second-best.

You know I’m usually all in favour of clever substitutions in the kitchen, but for this recipe — go with the real ingredients, that’s my advice!

If you want the word on authentic Italian cooking, where better to find it than in Italy? Today’s guest post is contributed by that modern-day Renaissance Man best known as Guilherme Zo’C — and I think you’ll enjoy his joyful approach to cooking! ~ Jen

How to cook original Italian style

Many of the delicacies gourmets use and abuse these days, were created to overcome food difficulties of the past.

Sun dried tomatoes, just as most other dried food, were invented mostly to overcome food shortage on winter. In southern Italy, people dried the tomatoes in the sun and, to make them last even more, they conserved them into olive oil, a mix that could easily last for a long winter.

These days, anyone can have dried tomatoes just because is delicious, and just because of this, about a month ago I decided to make my own conserve of Sun Dried Tomatoes.

Because I had never done one, I found it appropriate to google a bit before I start. I found many pages with similar, although different, procedures. After a bit of reading I put my thoughts in order and my hands into it.

You can dry the tomatoes yourself by cutting them into halves, cover them with a mix of sugar and salt and let them dry in the sun for a couple of days, but I decided to buy them already dried because it was the conserve I was actually interested in.

For the conserve, pick a clean and preferably sterilized glass pot and pour some Extra Virgin Olive Oil nto it. Put a layer of sun-dried tomatoes, then cover them with olive oil, then another layer of tomatoes and so on.

Be sure the olive oil covers entirely the tomatoes. Cover and let them rest for 2 weeks before using it. If the oil properly covers the tomatoes and you keep the jar from dust, they can last for the whole winter as in the old days before the refrigerator and canned food.

So far, so good, but what is so interesting in this conserve, why didn’t I just buy the conserve, once I have bought the tomatoes already?

Well, the fun part is that you can chose your favorite oil other things to go into the jar with the tomatoes and oil. Among the recipes I read, I found suggestions to add garlic, basil, oregano, peppers… but I also found a warning:

Sorry, I must disagree!

A good part of original Italian cuisine was developed by housewives, little local restaurant cooks and even the poor and the people in general trying to survive to winters, wars and misery. What makes it so good is the intimate cultural relationship they have with food, that naturally becomes a cooking instinct.

I think the only way to really cook Italian style, is to develop an instinct and invent your own dishes on a daily basis, even if your first attempts are so bad that Italians themselves would laugh at it.

Guilherme is a Web Designer and works freelance in northern Italy.

He is happily married to Anna, and in his free time he enjoys cinema, traveling, cooking and eating.