After a successful sugar detox, you are now allowed to add a little sweetness again to your dinners.
Falling short of vegan recipes for 2019? Don’t worry, you’ll find plenty of ideas here in the new year!
So today, we are going to make a wintery, heart-warming dish that’ll have your family of guests ask for more!
What you’ll need:
- Butternut squash
- Sweet potatoes
- Smoked tempeh (if you cannot find smoked tempeh, then buy the regular tempeh and marinate it in smoked paprika and a bit of plant-based oil)
- Lettuce
- Beetroot mayonnaise
- maple syrup
- balsamic vinegar
- salt & pepper
- tamari (kind of vegan soy sauce)
- thyme
- garlic
- nutmeg
This recipe is actually super easy, so you don’t need to be a hobby cook to succeed, you just need to do some cutting 😉
First cut the butternut squash in small pieces of about 5 cm long and 2 cm thick (see picture). Then put the pieces (you may leave on the skin!) on a baking tray, add some salt and pepper, poor some maple syrup on top or some balsamic vinegar and leave in a heated oven until done (the lower your oven temperature, the longer it takes, but the more vitamins that are kept within the squash. The squash is ready when you are able to stick a knife through it and that it is soft)
If you like the sweet smokey taste, then I advise you to use the maple syrup. If you prefer to have a bit of a smokey sweet & sour or more bitter taste, then you use the balsamic vinegar which will make it less sweet than the maple syrup version, but you will still have the caramelised taste.
For the sweet potatoes you can choose to cut them in similar pieces as the butternut and add them on the baking tray as well to have a combination platter of caramelised sweet potato and butternut.
For the kids I often cook the sweet potatoes in water (cut into small pieces first and peel off skin) and make mashed potatoes. It’s really soft to mash, you just add some salt, pepper and nutmeg. You can also throw in a bit of plant-based cream if you like it more creamy. The kids love it!
While your veggies are cooking, cut the tempeh into little squares and marinate them in maple syrup, balsamic vinegar, tamarin, garlic, olive oil and some thyme. Ideally you would have them marinate in advance. You’ll get the best result if the tempeh can marinate for 12 hours in the fridge, but if you don’t have time for that, you can also have it marinate for 1 hour and it will also still be very tasteful.
Once tempeh has marinated bake in a pan with cover and let it simmer until golden brown. When the tempeh starts getting this dark caramelised sides it’s ready.
Serve the tempeh on a plate with the butternut and the sweet potatoes. Add a side salad with the beetroot mayonnaise and you are ready! The fresh salad with beetroot mayonnaise gives some freshness to the dish, while the other ingredients are wintery, sweet and heart-warming.
You may also add some vegan cornbread if you want to make it more festive. I’ll soon share a post about vegan and gluten-free breads, so that you can try these recipes out as well.
Enjoy and let me know what you thought of it! Don’t hesitate to comment below!
Thanks,
Géraldine
geraldinechapelle.blog 