I was having some trouble following. The stuffing is the pilaf, right? The pilaf itself sounds good, but it could use an onion. Unless it's a lot of feta, you might also want an egg. And I'd put the dill in the stuffing, too.

My biggest concern is the texture of that which is being stuffed. I like them to be firm, so I don't pre-cook them, which gets to be soft on soft. That said, obviously, make them the way you want them.

Being a bunch of soft, however, even if the outsides are crisp, sauce seems a bit extra and like it would just make things soggy. Your ideas would all work, but why don't you make them as condiments, maybe a yoghurt sauce and a tachinah sauce, only one with lemon and the other with coriander, and you can each pick and pour your own when you want it? Is it lemon or acid your husband dislikes? Because you could substitute a nice vinegar for the lemon. If you just have ordinary vinegar, you could add, say, some cider vinegar to a little apple juice with the yoghurt and maybe some black pepper and oregano. Or you could pulverize a couple of acidic cherry tomatoes to use in the techinah.

It all sounds good. Don't over think it and have fun!

As per "soft" the only vegetable that I didn't love was the delicata squash. It stuffed beautifully, nice visual, but the squash itself, when cooked, is soft. That's the nature of cooked squash. I have made stuffed squash numerous times and overall I guess I am going to have to admit I am just not a fan. And if I have one way I like, it would be with a bread stuffing. Somehow the flavor and texture of bread is less onerous to me, which of course makes no sense. The orange pepper was great, the flavor went well with the fruity stuffing, and the cabbage was excellent.

As for the sauce, I made a tahini sauce with tahini, some home made yogurt, dill weed, garlic and instead of lemon juice, some apple cider and tried to use up some raspberry vinaigrette that we had in the fridge that no one particularly likes. It was ok, but if I ever make it again, I am just going to bite the bullet and use some lemon juice with just a little honey to counteract the bitterness of the other ingredients. The raspberry vinaigrette didn't clash but it didn't exactly enhance either. Too bad because I made too much of it so now have a lot of that to use up, which then defeats the purpose of making the pilaf and stuffed vegetables to use up those things. Now I have tahini sauce to use up, no net gain of clearing out the fridge. Looks like we'll be having some falafel in the next couple of days . . .

It sounds like it came out well enough. It was the squash I was most concerned about. It would help to dry it out by roasting, but I agree with you. I love squash, but have never loved stuffed squash other than when the flesh was pretty well cleaned off the skin, and the skin was used just as a conveyance for the stuffing, rather than expecting to be eaten.

Y'know, you could put the sauce and some stock in a pot as the basis for a soup, and add from there. Carrot soup sounds good for that, or any roots such as roasted turnips or even celery root.

Just garlic, yogurt and seasoning is also a traditional middle eastern sauce. Your stuffed peppers look lovely.

Yeah, I started off with just garlic and nothing acidic, but it just seemed too bland. I don't know if my husband would have even noticed or disliked a dash of lemon. He ended up just eating the leftover sauce out of the bowl. It has a weird raspberry flavor which to me, being used to the more traditional sauces, seemed slightly off putting. But he doesn't eat Middle Eastern food on a regular basis, so who knows. He is not a picky eater in general, he often just eats things he doesn't like, but over time he gets resentful. Like he bragged up on how he could happily eat vegetarian food but now that I am doing most of the cooking and cooking mostly vegetarian, he is getting grumpy about dinnertime. Pft. The kitchen is open, he's welcome to make his own food but I am done cooking heavy saturated fat laden things for others to the detriment of my own health.