Sequestration Meal #158

 

This did not go according to plan, and was never meant to be a whole meal, but before I get to the details on that, isn't it pretty? This a Savory Mushroom and Quinoa Stuffed Mini Pumpkin using the recipe at Simple Seasonal. I've wanted to make this recipe since I first saw it two years ago, and would you believe that the coronavirus isolation was the first time I've been able to get fresh mini pumpkins?

On the day I was trying to be brave and dust myself off properly and really get into the kitchen, and I was excited that the weather had cooled enough to make roasting some pumpkins a good idea, I set out to make these pumpkins. As the process was underway, I lost running water due to a water main break.

This is a challenge under the best of circumstances, but in a pandemic when I can't leave my home (a water main break is usually a good time to hang out at a diner or something nearby but far enough away to have water), and I'm in the middle of prepping something that requires me to wash mushrooms and leeks of all things, having no running water was a bit of a disaster.

Fortunately, I do keep containers around filled with tap water, which I used to wash the vegetables. I had them just in case something dreadful happened (although before now I've not had to use them for that), and I still had some water in my teakettle to cook the quinoa in. The quinoa itself was a pre-washed brand, and though I usually would rinse it off anyway, I skipped that step.

I was meant to eat these pumpkins with some end-of-season corn on the cob and some other stuff, but I was so worn out in more ways than one when I finished prepping the pumpkins, and I didn't have the water to boil corn in. I just decided this was going to be lunch and I'd round things out with snacks for the rest of the day.

So that was the bad news. But the good news is that I really liked these, so long as the pumpkins themselves are orange; the delivery came with a mix of orange and white pumpkins and I'll tell you more about the white pumpkins when I show you a later meal I had with the leftovers. I think this would be a great vegan main dish for Thanksgiving, and one that non-vegans would probably also be willing to eat--plus it's really allergy friendly, because it's also gluten free, unlike my favorite omnivore-friendly Thanksgiving main dish of mushrooms and nuts en croute with gravy.

I probably won't be ordering mini pumpkins again for fear of white pumpkins showing up, but I can at least cross this off my list of untried recipes. Perhaps it goes without saying that one of the reasons for the appeal of this recipe in the first place was how awesome it would be in a packed lunch; I still hold this to be true but I don't know if things will align such that you'll ever see this in bento form. But I'll hold out hope.

Not to worry about the water--it did come back on--but it was basic psychology that this made me a bit less keen on kitchen experiments for a bit, so it sparked the return to easy food for a while. I'm proud of myself, though, for making it through this recipe anyway, and for finding it in myself to keep going after such a hard weekend.