Pumpkin: soup and roasted

It is winter and pumpkin is in season. I have finally tried two of the most common pumpkin dishes: a pumpkin soup and some roasted pumpkin. Both are easy to cook and so delicious: perfect warming dishes.

 

 

 

 

Pumpkin mash

This is one of the best way to have pumpkin. Pumpkin mash. To me, this is one simple thing to make. Basically, all you need is to cook your pumpkin until tender (I put them in the pressure cooker). Mash them. Mix them with some cooked onion and garlic. Then add about 3 tablespoons of heavy cream to add a creamy texture to it. Sprinkle with herbs, lot of them, salt and pepper. If you want to, you can even add some grated cheese. Result should be something like this:

This is sweet, smooth, creamy. You also have that crunchiness from the onions. Simply awesome.

Pumpkin gratin (recipe)

I did not have the opportunity to upload my recent pictures, so I will post up a few pictures that have been sitting on my desktop, waiting to be posted. This is the pumpkin gratin that  I made two weeks ago- throwback Saturday. Anyway, this time it was creamy and not chunky, like last time yes. See I told you that you always learn from your errors. Now my first mistake was that the pumpkin was chopped too thick. Result is that it takes longer to cook. Second mistake is that I should not have cook it in a heavy pan, rather in a pressure cooker. Well a note to myself next time though is that pumpkin do not need lot of water to go with in the pressure cooker.

Alright so this recipe is pretty simple. All you have to do is chop you pumpkin (I used butternut one) into 1cm cube (see first picture below). Put in your pressure cooker with less than a cup of water. Add salt and pepper and herbs if you want. In the meantime, cook garlic and onion until it changes colour. Wait for the 3rd blow to turn off the pressure cooker. Let the air out and take out the inside. If the pumpkin is still in pieces. mash them. Add the pan with the onion and garlic. Add cream (as required). Salt and pepper to season and more herb. Then put your mixture in an oven proof dish. Top with cheese and breadcrumb. Finish off with cooking spray on top or butter. Put in the oven 180 degrees for about 15-20 minutes until golden.

 

Ingredients:

1kg pumpkin (I used butternut)
1 onion, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic
Herbs (any you prefer/ have on hand)
3-4 tbs heavy cream  
Grated cheese (cheddar/ parmesan/ any)
Breadcrumbs

Olive oil
Cooking spray
Salt and pepper, to taste
Butter (optional)

Bacon Zucchina Pasta bake and Pumpkin Gratin

Last week, I was high and pumped on baking. I decided to make a pasta bake and pumpkin gratin. It seems like zucchini and pumpkin are in season. I can see them everywhere, in  markets and supermarket, which is great because you can create so many dishes with those nice vegetables. As a side note, I finally decided I like eating pumpkin and zucchini. Believe me or not I was not a great 'veggie-eater' before. I had the strangest thought that I would never taste pumpkin because it looks eww to me (seriously).  Anyway gone is this thought. Now I realise what I have been missing. I like that sweet taste and softness when cooked. I like zucchini, they have that great flavour and goes so well with anything.

So I decided to make that pasta bake using the recipe from healthyfoodguide.com.. I used spiral macaroni. I top it with cheddar cheese and bits of feta cheese. Surprisingly I ended up with two dish instead of one, which I am not to complain about because it was really yummy, cheesy and creamy. A definite like.

My pumpkin gratin was good. The only hiccup was that I did not let the pumpkin tender enough. So my gratin  ended having little chunks of pumpkin.

Pre-oven, not yet topped with cheese

Baked :)