Pumpkin Dhal

After running my first half marathon yesterday, I'm definitely in need of some filling comfort food. I was absolutely stoked with my time of 1 hour, 50 minutes, given that I was hoping for 2 hours. All that energy I've used is making me hungry!

Although today was a lovely sunny day, it was still pretty cool if you weren't in the sun and it gets rather chilly when the sun goes down.

A big bowl of something warm and comforting was on the cards. I have the last of our homegrown pumpkin sitting in the fridge and wanted to make something to use it up. I made pumpkin soup last week and didn't really want risotto, so decided to make an Indian inspired dhal. I've made this recipe before with spinach, and it was great, so I figured that pumpkin would work equally as well with the spices and flavours.

This is a really simple, but tasty, dish. Perfect for when you want something quickly that's going to fill you up and keep you satisfied. Hearty comfort food at it's best!

It tastes even better the next day too, so make up a double batch and have some now and some later in the week. Otherwise, you could freeze some to eat on a night when you can't be bothered cooking. Just make the spiced oil fresh to drizzle over the top.

I served my dhal with naan bread, but you could use papadums too.

Pumpkin Dahl

300g yellow split peas
2 tsp brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp ground turmeric

3cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated (or 2 heaped teaspoon of the jarred stuff)

3/4 tsp ground cumin

1kg pumpkin, peeled, seeds removed and diced (you want about 750g flesh)

Juice of 1 lime
Salt to taste (you'll need about 1/4 to 1/2 tsp)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

2 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 long red chilli, halved, seeds removed and thinly sliced

Rinse the split peas in a colander, place in a bowl and cover with water. Allow to soak for about 1 hour and then drain and rinse again.

Put 6 cups of water in a large saucepan and bring to the boil.

Add the split peas, sugar, turmeric, ginger, cumin and pumpkin. Simmer for about 30 mins or until the pumpkin is soft and the split peas are tender.

Remove from the heat and stir through the lime juice.

In a small fry pan, heat the oil and fry the mustard seeds until they start to pop. Remove from the heat and add the garlic and chilli to the hot oil. Stir to combine and to stop the garlic from burning.

Serve the dhal in bowls and spoon over some of the spiced oil.

Enjoy as is, or serve with papadums or naan to scoop up.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

After making pumpkin soup, pasta with a pumpkin, bacon and blue cheese sauce and giving a huge wedge away, I still had some of our GIANT pumpkin left over!

I haven't done any baking for a while, so figured this was the perfect time to experiment with a pumpkin cake. You can make carrot or zucchini cakes, so why not pumpkin?

I modified a recipe for a carrot cake that I picked up from somewhere years ago and decided to dress it up with layers of a streusel topping. You could probably put the topping onto the top of the cake, rather than baking it in layers, but I think it was nice to have the surprise of the nuts, sugar, cinnamon and dates inside. I used mixed nuts as that's what I had in the cupboard, but feel free to use your favourite type of raw nut. Walnuts, almonds, pistachios or pecans would all be lovely.

The pumpkin flavour wasn't as strong as I thought it might be, but it certainly added a different flavour than carrot or zucchini. Slightly more earthy and not quite as sweet.

All in all, I was pretty impressed with how the cake turned out. It does take a long time to cook, so you might need to protect the top of the cake with some foil if it's starting to brown too much.

I didn't ice my cake, because the kids wanted to eat some straight out of the oven, but you could simply dust with icing sugar or make up some cream cheese icing. In fact, lemony cream cheese icing would be perfect on this cake for a morning or afternoon tea treat.

Pumpkin Streusel Cake

1/3 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup mixed nuts, chopped

1/3 cup dates, finely chopped

1 tsp cinnamon

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and set aside.

3 cups SR flour

1 1/2 cups caster sugar

2 cups pumpkin, grated

3 eggs

1 cup natural yoghurt (you could use vanilla too for a slightly sweeter version)

1/3 cup vegetable oil

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Grease and line a 22cm round cake tin.

Sift flour into a bowl and then add the sugar and pumpkin.

In a separate bowl, combine eggs, yoghurt and oil.

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined.

Spread 1/3 of the cake mixture into the tin and top with half the streusel mixture.

Repeat layers, finishing with a layer of cake batter.

Bake for 1 1/2 hours or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. Gently place a piece of foil over the top of the cake if it's getting too brown.

Allow to rest for 5 minutes in the tin before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Dust with icing sugar or ice with cream cheese icing, if you like.

Enjoy!

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

Given how cold the weather is in Melbourne at the moment, I couldn't go past making some warming soup with the giant pumpkin from our garden. 

I wanted to try something a little bit different to the usual, so thought that adding some roasted red capsicum to the mix would create some extra sweetness. It certainly did add sweetness and that beautiful charred flavour you get from roasting capsicum. As well as the flavour, the soup turned out a lovely orangey red colour. Perfect to warm you up!

To add a bit of crunch and texture, I decided to top the soup with some chopped parsley and chopped roasted macadamia nuts. Delicious!

I hope you ejoy this simple bowl of comfort in the cold weather too.

Roasted Pumpkin And Capsicum Soup

1.2kg pumpkin, skin and seeds removed and chopped (you want about 1kg of flesh)

2 red capsicums, halved lengthways, seeds and membranes removed

1 large brown onion, chopped

2 cloves of garlic, chopped

A drizzle of olive oil

1 litre of chicken or vegetable stock

1/4 cup macadamia nuts

A handful of parsley, chopped

Preheat oven to 180 degrees.

Place pumpkin and capsicum in a baking tray and drizzle with oil.

Roast until the pumpkin is soft and the skin on the capsicum is blackened and blistered. This will take about 45 minutes. If the capsicum seems to be burning, remove it from the oven before the pumpkin.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin from the capsicum.

Meanwhile, place the macadamia nuts in a small oven tray and dry roast for 5 to 10 minutes, shaking the tray every so often to stop them burning. Remove from the oven when they are golden brown.

Allow the nuts to cool  then coarsely chop and set aside.

Heat another drizzle of oil in a large saucepan over medium heat and cook onion and garlic until softened.

Add the roasted vegies and cook for another couple of minutes.

Add the stock, bring to the boil and simmer for 15 minutes or until the pumpkin is very soft.

Allow to cool slightly, then blitz with a stick blender until smooth. Season to taste and add extra stock if the soup is a little bit thick.

Serve steaming bowls of the soup topped with a sprinkling of parsley and macadamia nuts.

Enjoy!

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.