Ways With Pumpkin

After picking an enormous pumpkin from our vine a few weeks ago, I've been looking for different ways that I could use it up.  There's always pumpkin soup and roast pumpkin to go with a beautiful cut of meat, but I wanted something a bit more fancy and a little unusual.

I thought about making some pumpkin gnocchi with a blue cheese sauce, but then had the inspiration to turn it all around and make blue cheese gnocchi with a pumpkin sauce. Genius! I also had a couple of figs left over, so figured that a couple of fresh figs on the top with an extra crumbling of blue cheese would be delicious. And it was!

I made this for dinner on Saturday night, as it did need some preparation, but you could make it for a weeknight if you were really organised or managed to get away from work early. You could probably make the gnocchi the day before and leave them covered in a cool place. That way you'd only need to make the sauce and cook up the gnocchi when you were ready to eat. A little fiddly, but certainly worth the effort.

We had this for dinner as a large serve, but it would also be great at a party for finger food. You could serve one or two gnocchi on an Asian spoon with a dollop of the sauce, a cube of blue cheese and some diced fig. A beautiful single bite!

Blue Cheese Gnocchi With Pumpkin Sauce

500g potatoes, skin on and left whole
1/4 cup blue cheese plus extra for serving
A pinch of salt
1 cup plain flour
A drizzle of olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 rashers short cut bacon, diced
500g pumpkin, skin and seeds removed, diced
1 1/2 cups chicken stock
2 figs, cut into quarters
Salt and pepper to taste

Place potatoes in a saucepan of cold water and bring to the boil.
Cook until a skewer inserts smoothly into the middle of the potato.
Drain and set aside until cool enough to handle. Peel and return to the saucepan.
Add the blue cheese and a pinch of salt and mash until smooth.
Tip onto the bench top, add the flour and knead gently with your hands until a smooth, soft dough forms. Don't overwork the dough or your gnocchi will be tough.
Divide the mixture into rough quarters and roll out each piece into a sausage 1.5cm wide.
Cut into 2cm lengths and set aside on a lightly floured tray, with gnocchi pieces separated, so they don't stick.

To make the pumpkin sauce, heat a drizzle of oil in a saucepan and fry the onion and bacon for about 5 minutes or until starting to soften.
Add the pumpkin and stock and simmer until the pumpkin is soft.
Allow to cool for a few minutes, then puree with a stick blender. Season to taste.

Cook the gnocchi by boiling a large saucepan of salted water and then dropping batches of the gnocchi into it. They are cooked when they rise to the surface.
Spoon the cooked gnocchi into a colander to drain and repeat with the remaining gnocchi.

To serve, place cooked gnocchi on plates or bowls and spoon the warm pumpkin sauce over the top.
Sprinkle with extra crumbled blue cheese, four fig quarters and a grinding of black pepper.

Enjoy!

And To Drink....

While this dish didn't contain many different components, it was full of flavour. The salty and bitey blue cheese, the sweet pumpkin sauce and the sweet, soft figs. Each element complementing the other. 

My husband actually chose a lovely 2005 Reilly's Old Bushvine Genache from the Claire Valley in South Australia. We bought this wine years ago at the Good Food Show in Melbourne and had completely forgotten about it. Even though it was a relatively big red, it was probably past its prime and has lost some of the the beautiful fruit that we had enjoyed in previous bottles. It was still a lovely drop, with soft tannins and a beautiful roundedness to it. As a lot of the fruit flavours had diminished, it didn't really show plum or red berry, as you'd expect.

While the wine wasn't at it's peak, it was still very enjoyable and matched the pasta dish perfectly.

Fresh Figs!

Fresh figs are just so gorgeous at the moment and I can't help but buy some when I see them in the fruit shop. The are delicious on their own, but make an otherwise plain dish amazing. Although they are sweet, figs can be used in savoury meals too and I think this is where they shine!

For the last week, we have been having figs drizzled with honey and toasted macadamias, served with either natural yogurt or vanilla ice-cream.  Such a simple dessert, but with so much flavour. A wonderful way to finish off a meal with something that isn't too sweet.

With a couple of figs left in the fridge, I thought I'd have a go at making a salad to go with our dukkah crusted lamb backstrap tonight.

I also have a mammoth pumpkin from the garden, that needs to be used and some beautiful blue cheese. What could pair better than roasted pumpkin, figs and blue cheese?

Toasted walnuts also go really well with pumpkin and figs, so if you had some on hand, you could toss a handful over the top of the salad. They would add a lovely crunch!

This salad would go perfectly with any sort of meat, chicken or fish. Alternatively, you could just serve it with some fresh crusty bread for a lunch or light dinner. It was absolutely delicious!

Roasted Pumpkin, Fig and Blue Cheese Salad

A wedge of pumpkin of your choice

2 fresh figs, cut into quarters lengthways

1 tsp honey

1/3 cup of a hard blue cheese, crumbled

A handful of baby spinach leaves

A handful of rocket leaves

2 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbs lemon juice

Olive oil for drizzling

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Remove the skin and seeds from the pumpkin and cut into bit sized pieces.

Place on a baking tray, drizzle with oil and salt and pepper and roast for about 40 minutes, or until starting to brown on the outside and soft on the inside.

For the last 5 minutes of cooking time, add the fig quarters to the roasting tray and drizzle with honey.

Cook the figs until the honey starts to bubble and the figs soften, but don't go mushy.

Remove the figs and pumpkin from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.

In a large bowl, combine the cooled pumpkin, rocket, spinach and blue cheese.

Toss with the dressing and then arrange on a serving platter.

Carefully place the figs on top of the salad and serve.

For the dressing, combine extra virgin olive oil, lemon juice and salt and pepper to taste in a small jar. Shake well to combine.

And To Drink....

To match with the sweetness from the roasted pumpkin and figs and the bitey blue cheese, you need quite a big wine. Given that we also had dukkah crusted lamb backstop, a red wine was the obvious choice.

Kellermeister in the Barossa Valley make some wonderful wines, with the 2008 Black Sash Shiraz being one of their premium ones. It's one of my husbands favourites! 

Made from fruit obtained from old vines, the wine is dark and rich with blackberry and cassis. The 2008 is lovely and smooth, with a beautiful mouthfeel.  A perfect match to the flavours in the salad and the beautiful, juicy lamb.