Whole Roast Pumpkin

HALLOWEEN APPROACHES - WHOLE ROAST PUMPKIN

Today defiantly sitting in my fridge was a whole pumpkin and... little else. There are many things you could do with a pumpkin: roast it, blend it, grate it. None of which seemed particularly fun. However after realising that Halloween is just around the corner why not follow Dr. Frankenstein and give the sad looking pumpkin new life.

Essentially it is a stuffed pumpkin, and the recipe is one of those ones you can prepare with any filling substitutions you could think of/have handy and leave it in the oven. Today I had onion and goats cheese, both of which should hopefully add punch to what looked like a lacklustre pumpkin.


Ingredients (all approximate) -

1 Small Pumpkin (about 750g)
1 Brown onion
1 Garlic clove
1 Large mushroom
50g Goats cheese
1 small handful parsley (fresh or dried)
Salt+Pepper
Olive oil to roast

What I did - Preheat your oven to 180degrees celsius

Firstly crown the pumpkin with a small sharp knife, cutting right through the flesh and round the top. Then using a spoon, or your hands but the texture makes me squirm, scrape out all the seeds and pulp. Turn the body over and make three small incisions through the flesh. Then leave the hollowed pumpkin aside for its new guts.

In a mixing bowl, crumble the goats cheese and add the pepper. Mince the garlic clove and slice the onion into half-moons then add to the mixing bowl. Finely dice the mushroom and parsley and roughly mix all together.

Now fill the pumpkin with the onion mixture. Pack it quite tight, as the onions will reduce in the oven. Put the lid back on and roast in the oven on a baking tray. The tray will collect all the moisture that will escape through the cuts in the bottom of pumpkins, otherwise it will effectively boil the onion.  Leave in oven for about 2 hours, or until the skin has blackened and started to bubble.

Let sit for a few minutes to cool and for the pumpkin for firm up before cutting to serve. It worked quite well, if you try it and do something differently - with no doubt better results - let me know :)

JG

Never the Last Supper

There comes a time every week, everyday almost, when I find myself staring into the glaring abyss of the fridge. The fridge is a place that no matter how well stocked I always find hunger so uninspired by the random collection of groceries in front of me. However from this despair comes an urge to experiment with whatever my kitchen presents, these orphaned ingredients. Desperation drives creativity, so when options are limited, like Frankensteins monster, a ramshackle meal will be created - for better or worse.

Here I simply want to record and share the meals created. Most of them are inspired by something I've cooked before, or a recreation of a memorable meal from a restaurant or that which was just thrown together. Aside from some basics there are no recipes followed.

Your kitchen doesn't follow a cookbook and, unless you purpose buy the ingredients, kitchen improvisation will always deliver something. Whether they are any good I leave up to the my poor friends and family who sample the creations, and those of you who dare to try them yourselves.

This is how I learned to stop worrying and love the fridge.

Jim