Whoa. Yum: Squash and Red Pepper Pilaf with Portobello Mushrooms

Dear Food, you are colorful and tasty and smell good. I love you.


I made this Squash and Red Pepper Pilaf for the first time tonight, making a few modifications: after cooking the vegetables on the stovetop, I transferred the mixture to the rice cooker before adding a mixture of wild and long grain brown rice. The toasted pepitas (those are hulled pumpkin seeds, I've discovered) are the perfect topping, adding a deep nutty flavour as well as a nice crunchy contrast with the smooth squash.

But that was just the base layer! I sliced portobello mushrooms into lengths (about an inch wide), a sweet white onion into inch-thick rings, and a zucchini into thick medallions. Salt, pepper and savoury did the seasoning. I fried these until they were the perfect consistency for our tastes (still thick and juicy, not yet wilted away) and threw in two cloves of garlic, sliced, for the last few minutes of cooking.

We served the mushroom mix on top of the pilaf and greens on the side. What a hearty and delicious meal! Thanks to pre-cut squash, the whole thing was surprisingly easy to prepare and required very little hands-on time.

By the way, I realize that while most of you enjoy eating, very few of you share my ardent enthusiasm for cooking in general or vegetarian cuisine in particular. Cooking was on the top three list of things I was looking forward to doing for fun after the semester ended. But hey, I yam what I yam (tee hee hee) and you get what you get when you come here! And you're always welcome to come over and cook (and eat!) with us.