Stuffed vegetable garden

For all occasions and for every palate, that's the proposal Miriam, author of The Winter Guest, brings us today: vegetables stuffed with spiced rice. It's a pantry-staple recipe that you can easily adapt to your taste. Let's go for it!

I took this fun name for my stuffed little vegetables from the recipe by Tía Alia Recetas, because it perfectly describes this dish: assorted hollowed vegetables with the Lurch vegetable corer and filled with a vegetarian mix of the vegetables themselves and a spiced rice. Nothing can go wrong.

And I'll tell you that this stuffed garden is a great way to get those kids who aren't big fans of vegetables to eat them; we usually have at least one nearby (I have two…).

I find it works very well with potatoes, which stay firm and tasty. If a light vegetable filling doesn't convince you, you can always use a thick Bolognese sauce or a meatball-like mix of ground meat with the seasonings you prefer. Here we go:

Lurch vegetable corer and Rösle copper Shallow Casserole.

Ingredients

• 3 small eggplants
• 1 large zucchini or 2 small ones
• 3 medium potatoes
• 1 large onion
• 2 garlic cloves
• Olive oil to taste
• 150gr of fried tomato (better if homemade)
• ½ tsp. cumin
• ½ small glass of long-grain rice (uncooked)
• 1 glass of water
• ½ tsp. turmeric
• ½ liter vegetable broth
• A little fresh parsley or cilantro

Preparation

1. We peel the potatoes and wash them. We cut the bottoms off all the vegetables so they can stand upright and divide them into several sections of about 8–10 cm, to the consumer's liking.
2. We hollow out the vegetables with the Lurch vegetable corer; it's very easy, you just press the corer against the vegetable cylinder, turn clockwise and watch the opposite end of the vegetable to stop as soon as you feel the tip of the tool approaching, in order to prevent the vegetable cylinder from being completely pierced through and to leave a base for the vegetable to hold the filling.
3. Once the vegetable is hollowed we remove the spiral pulp left in the corer and chop it. Wrap the hollow pieces in plastic and refrigerate while we make the sofrito.
4. We chop the onion and garlic cloves. Cover the bottom of a frying pan with oil and sauté the onion over low heat until translucent. Add the chopped garlic and give it a few stirs.
5. Add the chopped vegetables and potato, and sauté until perfectly tender; they will shrink considerably. When they are fairly done we will add the fried tomato.
6. While the vegetables finish cooking we can prepare the rice. We have two options:
   1. Cook it together with the vegetables when these are done, adding the broth.
   2. Cook the rice separately, with broth, salted water and some spice, or however we prefer. The rice I used is semi-brown rice cooked in vegetable broth with a little turmeric.
7. Whichever option we choose, when the rice is cooked and the vegetables softened we should have a relatively dry mixture that allows us to use it as a filling without getting too messy.
8. We retrieve the little vegetable cups we made with the corer. I advise partially cooking the potatoes and eggplants beforehand in the microwave, because if we roast all the vegetables at once they won't all cook evenly; potatoes take the longest, followed by eggplants.
9. We fill the little zucchini, eggplant and potato cups with a spoon, so the filling protrudes a bit.
10. Place the stuffed vegetables in an oven dish, pour in the vegetable broth, cover the dish with aluminum foil and roast in the oven at 180° for about 25–30 minutes.
11. Remove the dish and serve the stuffed garden sprinkled with a little parsley or cilantro.

Lurch vegetable corer, Mediterránea glass bowl and Rösle copper Shallow Casserole.

I won't say more than that my children are quite resistant to vegetables and they really liked this stuffed garden, especially the stuffed potatoes… Oh, and it's also a vegan dish, which is so trendy. Light, nutritious and very tasty. A pantry-staple recipe.

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• For this recipe it's ideal to use the Lurch vegetable corer (here), a utensil 100% stainless steel designed to last a lifetime and very practical for doing its job.
• If you want to cook the vegetables and then the rice with its broth (the first option in step 6 of the recipe), the Emile Henry Faitout Shallow Casserole may suit you (here), especially designed for these kinds of preparations.