Stuffing Your Midweek Marrow

I had a marvellous time bumbling around Edinburgh Fringe finding all of the tasty things to put in my face. You'd think the near constant Scottish hill walking and much laughing would burn off anything I ate, but so plentiful were Edinburgh's vegan offerings all of the mild exercise was interspersed with almost non-stop munching and I actually came home feeling quite heavy and stuffed. To summarise: Sooo much vegan food in Edinburgh.

Anyway, after feeling stuffed to the gills I decided to stuff something else. Not anything with gills though, obviously- just a massive marrow.

This was a tasty and satisfying offering to the dinner gods, but is still quite light and I was feeling rather virtuous after having my two rings on salad. That is until Massive Munch came in and forced me to eat loads of chocolate. Admittedly, it was mostly Kam Alive raw chocolate, but he made me bloody loads of it. This is apparently because I've been secretly and unwittingly hoarding chocolate. In abundance. Seriously, I can see at least 6 boxes of Booja Booja from here on my sofa. That's not even the start of it. We did the kitchen out the other week (it's going to be amazing) and I found some chocolate penguins. From last Christmas. Realistically, I've probably got a pile of chocolate as tall as my leg. I'm not sure I need 40 inches of chocolate, but it's here now...so...

Anyway, enough with my increasingly obvious and vaguely worrying food hoarding problem, I'm dealing with it. One day at a time. On with the recipe!

Stuff Your Midweek Marrow

serves 4-6

1/2 massive marrow cut into inch thick rings, seeds removed (I like to save to top the dog's food)
1 onion, diced
4 garlic cloves, diced
1/2 orange pepper, diced
4 big handfuls of cherry tomatoes
1 veg stock cube
125g TVP (textured vegetable protein)
600ml of boiling water
some olive oil
1 tsp turmeric
1 pinch of salt
Bragg's organic sprinkle
Artisan Vegan Cheese Co cheddar style (optional)

1. Preheat the grill to high and pop a large pan on a low heat with a little olive oil in the bottom.
2. Gently soften the onion, pepper and garlic. Once soft, add the tomatoes and heat until starting to blister. Stir in the veg stock and add in the TVP and half of the water, bring back to the boil and gently simmer.
3. Add more water if it looks like the TVP is a bit much for the amount of water, keep adding water until it looks coated with room to expand a bit.
4. Pop in the turmeric and salt and stir to mix thoroughly.
5. Using a potato masher gently press into the mixture to pop all of the tomatoes. Make sure the tomatoes are under the wet mixture or say goodbye to your retinas as tomato lava explodes and burns them off.
6. Simmer for 15 minutes or until cooked.
7. Whilst the TVP mix is cooking, coat your marrow rings in a little oil and Bragg's sprinkle and grill. Cook for 5-10 minutes on each side.
8. Once both elements are cooked, drain a spoonful of TVP mix and stuff your ring, sprinkle with cheese if that's what you're into and pop back under the grill until it takes on a colour that pleases you.
9. Serve on a bed of salad, with a drizzle of TVP mix juice
10. Yay! Marrow!
11. Wonder why you don't eat more marrows.
12. Oh, it's because yo've had 2 servings each, with some left for tomorrow's lunch and there's still half a marrow in the fridge that needs some sort of meal made out of it
13. Seriously.
14. Who needs that much marrow?!
15. Oh, I do. Obviously.