Monday, April 01, 2013

Butternut Squash with Spinach and Seitan served with Madagascar Pink Rice


I was tempted to use some seitan and spinach for tonight's dinner. I love winter squashes, and usually roast them. They're great cooked with other items, but I find it difficult due to the hardness to cube them, so like having frozen cubed squash on hand, as I did. Here are the ingredients that I used:
  • 8 ounce package of seitan strips
  • 2 cloves garlic, finely diced
  • 10 ounces frozen cubed butternut squash
  • 2 teaspoons of lemon juice
  • 5 ounces baby spinach
  • 2 tablespoons of onion, chopped to 1/4" cubes
  • 2 teaspoons of finely grated ginger
  • Pinch salt, larger pinch freshly ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon of lemon sage leaves (from my garden)
  1. I started sauteeing the packet of seitan strips and garlic in my stainless steel-titanium saute pan over medium heat, stirring occasionally
  2. After about 3 minutes when the seitan was slightly browned, I added the squash and continued cooking for another 3 minutes or so
  3. I added the lemon juice and stirred; a little of the food that had stuck a bit on the pan came "unstuck"
  4. I then added the spinach and cooked for 4 or 5 minutes till the mound of spinach was well cooked down
  5. I added the ginger and onion, as well as lemon sage, salt, and pepper, stirred, and let it all cook for another minute or so (a little jalapeno or red chili powder would have also been nice, but I omitted for the sake of our young daughter's palate)
I served the vegetable with Madagascar Pink rice (cooked in a 1 : 1 3/4 ratio of rice to water, along with a vegan bouillon cube, for 20 minutes) and tomato slices.