Pumpkin and Lentil Curry

It has been darn near freezing here lately (disclaimer: hyperbole. But it has been colder than usual). I've been eating things other than curries, despite what my blog might suggest, but I've been in one of those wintery ruts where I only cook staples like risotto and soup. I think it has something to do with the fact that all of my beloved food blogs are celebrating summer and fresh berries and salads and I just can't relate to that right now! Which is probably why I jumped at this recipe for pumpkin and lentil curry. Something warm and hearty to cook? Why, sure!

That, and I'd also bought another whole pumpkin for 99c/kilo about three days prior to discovering this recipe, so finding ingredients wasn't exactly an issue.

Much like the risotto, this curry is difficult to photograph well, but don't let that put you off! It tastes great, although I'd probably add some other vegetables to it next time for variety and colour. From memory, I used about 500g of pumpkin to make 400ml of pumpkin puree, but I could be incredibly mistaken. I've tried googling to verify if thats a plausible ratio but everyone just says to roast a whole pumpkin and then puree it with no measurements whatsoever.

I also added sultanas and shredded coconut to the top of my curry, something I learnt from Levi's family. I think it added some needed texture to the curry, without it, it probably would have been too bland.

PUMPKIN AND LENTIL CURRY
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 1 hour (20 minutes prep, 40 minutes cooking)
Adapted from Eat Me, Delicious
Cost: 0.98 per serve (0.80 per serve with 99c/kilo pumpkin)

185g red lentils
1 1/2 cups water
1 onion, diced
Ground ginger
270ml coconut milk
500g pumpkin, pureed
Curry powder
Cayenne pepper
Olive oil

1. Heat olive oil in a pan and fry onion until translucent. Add a couple of shakes of ginger (to taste) and fry a further 30 seconds.

2. Add lentils, water, coconut milk and pumpkin, and curry powder and cayenne pepper to taste. Cook over a medium-low heat until the lentils are cooked through (about 40 minutes). If the curry starts to dry out while cooking, add a little water or coconut milk and continue cooking.

Pumpkin Scones

Do you have an ultimate comfort food that makes you happy, no matter what? For me, comfort food isn't something you make when you're sad, just something that makes you happy when you eat it. It used to be mashed potato until I had a bad incident with instant mash. But pumpkin scones are the BEST, you don't even know. Drop everything and make them immediately.

And with homemade butter? LORDY. Have some with a cup of tea for a mid-afternoon snack. Nuke them for 30 seconds and eat on the way out the door in the morning. Just have some, please. It will enrich your life.

PUMPKIN SCONES
Makes 12 scones
Total time commitment: 40 minutes
Recipe from The Golden Wattle Cookery Book


1 1/2 tbsp butter
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup cold mashed pumpkin
2 cups self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar together. Add the egg and pumpkin.

2. Add flour and mix well. Pour in heaped tablespoons onto a greased tin and bake for 15 minutes.

Prosciutto, Sage and Pumpkin Spaghetti

Firstly, can I just say, why does GO! have an ad for Harry Potter that is some kind of rap using lines from the film? What is even happening there?

Ok. I'm glad we got that out of the way.

Because now, we can get on to one of the most delicious pastas I have cooked in a while. When I was visiting Grandma and Grandpa a while ago, I was lamenting that now I don't get the recipe liftout from the paper any more, so Grandpa started collecting them for me. Isn't that just the best? This is a Marg Johnson recipe I've taken from my collection. With added feta, just for kicks.

While I've got you here - is anyone else sick of Valentine's Day things already? I just DON'T CARE. Although I saw this on a craft blog and I think its appropriately cute and lacking in pink and hearts.

How to make custom fingerprint art on ManMade

The original recipe called for 2tbsp lemon juice to be added to the pasta when you're combining it, which I didn't do because I didn't have any. I don't think it would go that well with the feta - any opinions?

PROSCIUTTO, SAGE AND PUMPKIN SPAGHETTI

Original recipe by Marg Johnson
Serves 4
Total time commitment: 40 minutes. Most of this is waiting for the pumpkin to roast, so if you can pre-cook the pumpkin the time will be cut down to around 20 minutes.


Olive oil
1/2 large pumpkin or 1 small pumpkin, cut into chunks
Handful sage leaves
1 tbsp garlic
Chilli flakes
100g prosciutto
400g spaghetti

1. Place the cut pumpkin into a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and top with garlic, sage leaves and chilli flakes. Doesn't that look like it's going to be delicious?

2. Cook at 200C until tender. You need to be able to stick a fork through the pumpkin. This should take about 25-30 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, bring a pot of water to the boil and cook the spaghetti. When the pumpkin is just about done, place a tray with the prosciutto in a single layer in the oven. Cook it for about ten minutes until its crispy.

4. Time to combine everything! Place the pumpkin and pasta in a large bowl and toss to combine. Crumble prosciutto and feta on top and serve.

Pumpkin Bake: How not-to do it

The Uber-Blonde came over today for procrastinationing. We ended up making her pumpkin bake. We put the baking dish down on the stove top. We (thank goodness!) decided to eat in the loungeroom instead of the kitchen. Just as we sat down, THE BAKING DISH EXPLODED.

This is my tiny, dear, sweet kitchen after the massacre (taken from where we would have been sitting!)

Nonetheless - Pumpkin bake!

PUMPKIN BAKE


Half a pumpkin, roasted or boiled until it is soft
Breadcrumbs
One can of diced tomatoes
One onion
Cheese

1. Layer the pumpkin over the bottom of a baking tray.

2. Sprinkle liberally with breadcrumbs

3. Dice onion and fry until transparent

4. Add diced tomatoes and heat until a little of the moisture is gone from them

5. Pour over the breadcrumbs and top with cheese

6. Bake until cheese is melted. Nomnomnomnom. Do not place your baking dish over the hot stove top!

Roast Pumpkin, Feta and Walnut Pizza

Following yesterday's pizza bases recipe, this is my favourite pizza ever. EVER. Hands down. And I love me some pizza.

ROAST PUMPKIN, FETA AND WALNUT PIZZA


One pizza base
Roast Pumpkin
Feta
Spinach
Basil Pesto
Walnuts
Parmesan Cheese

1. Cover the base with pesto. Delicious, delicious pesto.

2. Put a layer of spinach over the pesto

3. Put some pumpkin over the spinach.

4. Crumble feta over the pumpkin

5. Break up the walnuts and sprinkle them over the pizza

6. Grate some parmesan on top

7. Bake that bad boy until it looks delicious. And it will be. Trust me on this one.

Pumpkin Gnocchi

I made regular potato gnocchi one when I still lived with mum and dad, and it was a disaster. So I didn't have high hopes for the pumpkin gnocchi, but it was lovely and simple and helped me finish the six kilos of pumpkin! This is one of the many, many recipes I've bookmarked from Closet Cooking. It helps if you have an entire pumpkin cooked, mashed and frozen in portions in the freezer, I'm just putting that one out there.

I made this once with a white sauce, and then froze the rest of the gnocchi and cooked it last night with a tomato sauce. Both were perfectly acceptable.

PUMPKIN GNOCCHI

2 cups cooked, mashed pumpkin

2 cups plain flour

1. Mix together

2. Flour the bench and roll out a handful of the dough into a sausage shape

3. Cut it up into bite-size pieces. Do this for all the dough.

4. Cook the gnocchi in boiling water until it rises to the top of the saucepan

5. If you want to freeze some, squirrel it away now! If not, eat it with all its delicious goodness.

Pumpkin Pie

I'm slowly working my way through the six kilos of pumpkin in my freezer, and now seemed an apt time to start a blog. I started out with (what TV leads me to believe is an) American classic, pumpkin pie. I had a quick look at the recipe on Closet Cooking (oh my goodness, one of my online bibles) and once I'd read

"A pumpkin pie is pretty simple; at its base it is pumpkin puree along with some eggs to bind it and help it set, some sugar to sweeten it and of course the pumpkin pie spice blend of cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and cloves."

I closed it and decided to just see how I went. As such, I don't have an actual recipe. Which is making this entire post seem kind of silly. However! I am clearly proving that you don't need to follow recipes to make food etc etc.

DELICIOUS PUMPKIN PIE

Mashed pumpkin (1 cup)

One egg

Cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg to taste

Sugar

Shortcrust pastry

Line a round baking dish with shortcrust pastry. If you don't have a round baking dish (HELLO, SELF), follow my ingenious lead and use a frypan. Thank me later.

Mix the pumpkin, egg, sugar and spices in a bowl.

Put on top of the pastry.

Cover in sugar.

Cook at 175 degrees for about 20 minutes or until it looks and/or smells delicious.

Simple, non?