Home-made Mondays - Spicy Quinoa Stuffed Squash

I sometimes have a tendency to be a bit lazy and rely too heavily on processed foods rather than making from scratch.

I'm not so much talking about ready meals, but more meat substitute type foods such as Quorn. Although Quorn and the like are great sources of protein and tend to be low in fat they are, ultimately, still quite heavily processed foods. I certainly don't use processed foods in every meal, but I thought it would be quite nice to have one night a week where I consciously create meals from scratch. Meat-free Mondays are a given anyway, so my vegetarian alternative is Home-made Mondays (not a very catchy title I'm afraid)!

I urge you all to try this. Embrace it! Add it to your Meat-free Monday! It is really good to be aware of what you are putting in your food, or what someone else is putting in your food for you. You will be surprised how many processed ingredients you use without even realising. Or maybe it's just me - give it a try and see if you learn anything about the way you cook and eat.

As always I will be aiming to make a meal that also uses up some of those good-for-you but neglected ingredients, and keep it as cheap as possible. As it's a Monday night it also needs to be fairly straightforward to make. Not too many boxes to tick then...

I have based this weeks Monday meal around two of my favourite ingredients - butternut squash and quinoa. Quinoa is really healthy - unlike couscous (which is processed durum wheat) it is a natural grain, which is low in fat but is a complete-protein and high in fibre and iron . It is also gluten-free!

So here it is...spicy quinoa stuffed squash, topped with an egg and a side of tomatoes. So comforting and really, truly delicious. You will have to take my word for it, as the picture quality is pretty dodgy for this post. These are genuinely things that I cook and eat, and tonight I was super hungry (greedy) and kind of forgot to take a picture before sitting down to eat!

Butternut squash
Olive Oil
80g quinoa
Chillies (as many/few as you like) - sliced
Red onion - cut into half moons
1 clove garlic - sliced
1 tsp of Paprika, cumin or chilli powder
3 tomatoes - halved
Pinch of fresh or dried herbs
Olive Oil
Eggs (same as number of people).

Pre-heat the oven to 180°. Cut the squash in half, remove the seeds, and put into a roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Put it into the over and roast until soft – about 40 minutes to an hour depending on the size of the squash. Mine was HUGE so took closer to an hour.




While the squash is cooking prepare the quinoa according to packet instructions. I tend to use water rather than vegetable stock as advised on most packets - I'm not a massive fan of the stock taste, plus it is Manufactured Free Monday so would have to make my own stock from scratch! I also use a little less water than recommended as soggy quinoa is to no-one’s liking. Cooking the quinoa takes about 15 minutes. Once cooked, drain and leave to one side.

Heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan and add the onions. Fry gently until they start to soften, and add in the chillies and garlic. Add in the spice powder – I gave a few options here because they would all be tasty, I used smoked paprika because that’s what I had – and heat quite gently for a minute or so.

Remove the onion mixture from the pan using a slotted spoon, and add to the quinoa.

Once the squash is soft remove it from the oven. Take a large spoon and scrape the flesh from the skins, leaving enough flesh to hold the skins together. Leave aside around two table spoons of the squash – this will be used in another meal tomorrow. Mix the rest of the squash with the quinoa mixture, season to taste, and spoon into the squash skins.

Return to the oven for 25 minutes.

Place the halved tomatoes cut side up in a roasting tin, and sprinkle with some dried or fresh herbs and salt and pepper (I used fresh thyme). Drizzle with olive oil, and place in the oven until soft – about 20-25 minutes.

Finally, use the spiced oil that remains in the frying pan to cook the fried eggs. Covering with a lid means you won’t need to add any additional oil as there will be heat on all sides of the egg.

Remove the squash and tomatoes from the oven. Serve, top each half of squash with a fried egg.