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!

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms

It's meat-free Monday again and I couldn't go two weeks in a row without using haloumi in my recipe! If that makes me a bit boring, well then so be it. Instead of just frying up the haloumi in slices, I did grate it and stuff mushrooms, so I was a bit creative!

The haloumi went all oozy in the oven and mixed with some herbs it tasted delicious with the juicy mushrooms. To top it off, a homemade red capsicum and cashew pesto made a dressing of sorts. A nice light vego meal to start the week.

Haloumi and Herb Stuffed Mushrooms With Red Capsicum Pesto

1 medium sized red capsicum

1 clove of garlic

1/2 cup toasted cashews

Juice of 1/2 a lemon

1-2 Tbs olive oil

4 large field mushrooms

180 g haloumi, grated

A few sprigs each of oregano, thyme and parsley, finely chopped

Salt and pepper to taste

A few handfuls of baby spinach

To make the pesto, cut the capsicum in half and remove the stem, seeds and membranes. 

Place skin side up on a sheet of foil under the grill and grill until the skin is charred and blistered.

Wrap the capsicum up in the foil and set aside for 10 minutes to make the skin easier to remove.

When cool enough to handle, peel the blackened skin off.

Place the capsicum, cashews, garlic, oil to taste and lemon juice in a small food processor and blitz until combined but still a bit chunky. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add more oil if it seems too thick.

Set aside until you are ready to serve.

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place mushrooms on a baking tray and drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until starting to soften and release their juices.

Meanwhile, combine the grated haloumi and finely chopped herbs.

Take the mushrooms out of the oven and pile the cheese and herb mixture on top. Grind some pepper on the top and then return to the oven.

Bake for another 10 to 15 minutes or until the mushrooms are soft and the haloumi is golden.

To serve, toss the baby spinach with some of the pesto and pile on to plates. Top with two mushrooms each and another few blobs of pesto.

Enjoy!

Haloumi And Chargrilled Eggplant Salad

Haloumi is a cheese that I often use to cook with when I'm making a vegetarian meal for dinner. It's so tasty when fried until crispy on each side and gives a beautiful texture and saltiness to any meal.

Often I match haloumi with asparagus and orange to make a light and fresh salad for when the weather is warm. Now that the weather is starting to cool down a little bit, it's nice to have a bit more body to a salad to make it more filling and hearty.

I often chargrill zucchini, but don't tend to use eggplant so much. When eggplant is roasted or chargrilled, it becomes soft and starts to fall apart, giving it such lovely flavour and soft texture. If you don't like the regular spongy texture of eggplant, then you must give this a go.

 To go with the extra body of the chargrilled eggplant, I wanted a dressing that also had a bit of oomph. Roasted red capsicum it was to be! I had some roasted and preserved red capsicum in the fridge that needed using up, which were perfect to whiz into a dressing. You could use bought red capsicum, but making it yourself is so easy.

Simply cut a red capsicum in half, remove the seeds and membrane and then grill under high heat until the skin blackens and blisters. Really, the blacker the better! Wrap the whole lot up in some foil or place in a bowl and cover with plastic wrap for about 10 minutes. When cool enough to handle, the blackened skin will peel right off.

To make the dressing, you need the soft, juicy roasted capsicum, some extra virgin olive oil, verjuice or vinegar and salt and pepper to taste. Whiz it all up in a small food processor until it's of a drizzling consistency and season. You don't want the sweetness of the capsicum overpowered by the acidity in the verjuice or vinegar, so add a little bit at a time. I used about a tablespoon for 1/2 cup capsicum and 1 tablespoon of oil. Adjust to suit your taste.

Chargrilled Eggplant Salad With Roasted Red Capsicum Dressing

3 small vine ripened tomatoes, halved

Olive oil for drizzling

2 eggplants, sliced lengthways into 5mm slices

Salt for sprinkling

1/2 cup roasted red capsicum pieces

1 Tbs extra virgin olive oil

1 Tbs verjuice

A handful of rocket leaves

1 spring onion, sliced into thin rounds

A handful of pine nuts

250g packet of haloumi, cut into 5mm slices

A teaspoon of sumac

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees.

Place halved tomatoes on a roasting tray and drizzle with oil and season to taste.

Roast for about 10 minutes or until the skin starts to split and the flesh softens.

Remove from the oven and set aside.

While the tomato is roasting, place the pinenuts in a small tin and roast in the oven for 5 to 10 minutes, checking and shaking frequently so they don't burn.

When they are golden brown remove from the oven, tip onto a cold plate and set aside to cool.

For the eggplant, sprinkle salt generously over the eggplant slices and leave for about 15 minutes until the bitter juices start to seep out.

Rinse the eggplant to remove the salt and bitter juices and then pat dry with paper towel.

Drizzle the oil over the eggplant and fry in a chargrill pan until the flesh starts to soften and grill marks appear on one side. Turn and cook on the other side.

Remove eggplant from the pan and set aside in a bowl to cool.

For the dressing, place red capsicum, verjuice and oil in a small food processor and whiz until combined. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Into the same bowl as the cooled eggplant, add the rocket, spring onion and toasted pinenuts.

Pour the dressing over the top and mix carefully to combine. Add the tomato at the final moment so it doesn't break down too much. Season with a bit of extra pepper, if you like.

For the haloumi, heat a good drizzle of oil in a frying pan until hot.

Fry the haloumi slices for a couple of minutes each side, or until crisp and golden. Sprinkle each slice with a pinch of sumac for extra flavour.

Remove and briefly drain on paper towel.

To serve, place the salad on to 2 plates and arrange the fried haloumi around the eggplant.

Enjoy!

And to Drink....

Now that I've started to enjoy and develop an appreciation for chardonnay again, I seem to be drinking a lot of it.  Not such a bad thing!

This beautiful 2006 'Ithaca' chardonnay from Nepenthe in the Adelaide Hills is a cool climate chardonnay that retains so many beautiful fruity flavours, while still having some buttery oakiness and complexity.

Admittedly, we opened this wine to have with our roast pork belly the night before and had some left over. It also matched perfectly with the sweetness of the roasted capsicum dressing and the saltiness of the haloumi. The saltiness actually enhanced the citrus flavours in the wine. The toasted pine nuts also brought out the nuttiness from the oaking process.

What a beautiful match to a lovely salad.

If you didn't have a chardonnay, any other dry style of white wine would match perfectly too. Even a dry rose with plenty of red berry and plum flavours would be perfect, especially if the weather was warm.