NEW RECIPE: Spicy Vegetarian Stuffing (Thanksgiving Special, Part 1)

© Constantine William Spyrou

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I hope you all have had an awesome day with familiy and friends enjoying good company and food. I sure have! My favorite part about Thanksgiving has to be the food, and this year, I got to help my mom out a lot with making dishes! This is one of the dishes that I made for Thanksgiving. I actually made this actual recipe a couple of weeks ago with some of my friends, then transformed the recipe with some ingredients that my mom had in store for Thanksgiving. This recipe is the original, however, with a completely vegetarian recipe that has some interesting twists that will be interesting! 

Recipe will serve up to 10 people.

For the Wet Vegetable Mix: 

1/2 diced large white onion
2 large diced bell peppers
2 roughly chopped leeks
2 cups roughly chopped squash
1 cup diced carrot
3 cups finely chopped celery
4 cups vegetable stock
1 Serrano chili, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons dried sage
1 tablespoon thyme
1/2 tablespoon dried rosemary
2 teaspoons onion powder
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 teaspoons paprika
2 teaspoons cardamom
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon dill weed
3 tablespoons grated parmigiano reggiano cheese
Salt and pepper to season

For the Bread Mix:

1 2 1/2 - 3 foot French baguette, diced
1 tablespoon dill weed
Salt and pepper to season

Cooking/Assembling:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
2. Combine the Bread mix ingredients together in your baking dish, then set aside.
3. Add some olive oil to a hot pan. Saute all of your vegetables and the garlic together with all of your herbs, spices, and seasonings until the onions turn translucent and the carrots and celery begin to soften. This should take about 10-12 minutes, and you should see the volume of vegetables reduce in the pan. When this happens, add your vegetable stock, bring to a boil, and slightly reduce.
4. Combine the wet vegetable mix with the bread mix, and mix well until thoroughly combined. Cover the top with your grated parmigiano reggiano, then bake for 45 minutes. Serve as part of a twist on Thanksgiving!

This stuffing has all of the traditional Thanksgiving flavors of sage and stock and bread, but the serrano helps to turn up the heat, the parmesean gives it a nice nuttiness and helps to calm down the heat of the serrano, and the cardamom, cinnamon, and nutmeg give it a really nice holiday lift that just helps you remember what kind of season it is! 

I hope you enjoyed this recipe! Let me know what you think and what you would change! If you make it at home, let me know how it turns out! Enjoy! =)