pumpkin

I love this one because it is so easy to make, with just two cooking steps, but rich in taste. Here goes:

Fry one chopped onion in 3 tbs sunflower oil until soft, then add:

one pumpkin, washed, not peeled and chopped in approx 2 or 3 cm cubes (after seeds are scooped out)
600 ml chicken stock
one orange or tangerine, cut in 4 pieces
2 or 3 carrots, sliced
40g of your favourite curry paste, preferably yellow
one 400g coconut milk

Let cook gently for 25 mins until pumpkin and carrot are soft, then add one small tin of lentils and cook further for another 5 mins.

Once ready add a little cream (optional) and cream with a hand blender. Add some water if required.

Add 20 g of chopped coriander.

Pumpkin can be bought any season these days. I enjoy it in many ways, but the easiest tends to be also one of the tastiest: roasting. Cut into slices and then divide each in 3 pieces, sprinkle heavily with extra virgin olive oil and add some herbs of your choice; fresh rosemary, sage and melissa works great. Fried or roasted sage always adds that extra spark to many foods.

Sprinkle with lots of pepper and sea salt and let roast in a 230oC oven for 50 minutes or until the pumpkin softens as to your taste. Ten minutes or so before add some cherry tomatoes and black beans and serve on a bed of slightly wilted spinach. You can get this effect by microwaving for 60 seconds on 900.

I added some soya substitute chunks for a complete dish.

Tip: How to cut pumpkin into slices with little effort? Put the whole pumpkin in hot water for 10 mins to soften. In this case, reduce the oven cooking time.