Roasted Garlic Mushroom Stacks

Last night we celebrated 17 years together.

Kid free – but we had to do our tax …. ah well, at least we got to have a yummy dinner!!

Peter says that if I had presented him with this kind of meal 15 years ago, he might have run … but he has gradually learned that you can have delicious flavour and texture without meat. So if you’re looking to add a meat free dish to your repertoire – this might be a very simple place to start – and it has 2 enthusiastic thumbs up from the carnivore!

Butternut pumpkin, two discs, about an inch thick
olive oil to brush
2 tsp nutritional yeast
2 large portobello mushrooms
1 tsp fresh chopped thyme
2 tsp garlic olive oil
1 tsp vegan butter
1/2 large ripe avocado
salt and pepper to taste
squeeze lemon juice
Mixed salad greens
Handful pine nuts OR pumpkin seeds

Peel your pumpkin discs, brush them with olive oil and sprinkle the nutritional yeast over them. Place on a lined baking tray and into a 200C oven. After about 25 minutes, turn the pumpkin over and return to the oven for another 10 minutes.

While the pumpkin is cooking dry fry your pine nuts/seeds in a hot frying pan until they are golden – be careful… it doesn’t take long! Then set them aside.

Melt together the butter and garlic olive oil and brush it over both sides of the mushrooms. Place these on the baking tray with the pumpkin discs (that have now been in the oven for about 35 minutes). Sprinkle over the thyme and return to the oven for about 15 minutes.

Mash together the avocado with the lemon juice plus the salt and pepper.

Place the salad greens on the plate. Top with the roasted pumpkin, then spread a thick layer of the avocado on to the pumpkin. Top with the mushrooms and then add the pine nuts over the meal.

When you remove the mushrooms from the baking tray, you’ll see that they have produced a dark juice … don’t waste it – drizzle it over the salad leaves!

Sprinkle the top of the mushroom with a little extra thyme and salt.