Honey Roasted Pumpkin Salad

I love love love pumpkin. The sweetness of this vegetable just seem to sit well with me. One of the first soup I tasted in Australia was pumpkin soup. That was sold $3 a cup in our college canteen. It was creamy stuff- I am thinking little pumpkin, lots of cream! However, the soup was also my introduction to this fabulous vegetable and I soon realised that home made pumpkin soup is so easy to make and a good pot of it can cost less than $10!

When I am in a cafe, AR can tell what I am going to order if pumpkin is featured on it. Roast Pumpkin toastie? I am in! Pumpkin soup? Yes please! So it is no surprised to him that I thought of roasting it with some honey and pairing it in a salad.

Truth be told though, I hate chopping this vegetable. I feel like I am in a battle with it! Which is why I often eat this in cafes rather than making it at home. Still, I am slowly getting the hang of it, and a sharp chopper knife helps....

If it fails though, I can always say "HUBBY, I need your help!" And of course, the hubs like it as that makes him stronger than I am (maybe that is the reason why I got married... to have a husband to help chop food and open jars? ;p)

Honey Roasted Pumpkin Salad  

Pumpkin can be roasted the night before if serving it for lunch. This can also be used in pasta.

1/2 butternut pumpkin chopped in cubes
2 tsp of paprika
1 generous tablespoon of honey
1 tsp of dried chili flakes
some cracked black pepper 

olive oil spray
Pre heat oven to 200C. Mix all the above together and spread them on a baking tray. Spray with oil and roast for around 20 minutes, checking after 10 minutes or so. Cool and store. 

200 grams of spinach leaves
toasted pecan nuts

Serve warm pumpkin on a bed of spinach leaves and sprinkle some pecan nuts on it for the crunch factor.

Red Curry Pumpkin Soup with Mango Chilli Sausages and Parmesan Waffles

oops! Sorry about this long title but I really excited to share this soup with you today. It's thick and rich and SPICY! A colleague of mine said to me that she added 2 tablespoons of left over thai red curry paste to her pumpkin soup and it had a huge punch to it. That got me excited and I returned home to try it that weekend.

As usual, I empty my fridge of vege-including one leek and a few potatoes to the pumpkin. The dear hubby then said to me he would prefer to have some MEAT in his soup which left me scurrying around-lucky though I did buy some Mango Chilli Sausages from Leanards so it was handy.


Red Curry Pumpkin Soup with Mango Chilli Sausages and Parmesan Waffles (Serves 6)
800 grams of butternut pumpkin
4 royal blue potatoes peeled and diced
1 red onion chopped
1 leek chopped (White part only)
3 carrots peeled and chopped
1 ltr of vege stock
2 tablespoon of red thai curry paste

1 cup of parmesan cheese

3 mango chilli sausages.

Saute onion in a deep pot. Add curry paste in and cook till it smells oh so good. Then add the diced pumpkin, carrots and potatoes. Add stock. Simmer for around 20-25 minutes.

Mean while, grill sausages till done. Rest. Sliced.

Cool soup for 5 mins.
Whizz the pumpkin soup up in batches (see, told u I love my food processor!). Return to pot. Add sausages.

Turn up the heat in your oven to around 200C. Sprinkle cheese on lined cookie tray. Grill it for around 5 minutes till it all melt. Cool slight. Break it up in pieces. Serve with soup.

Spiced Lamb and Pumpkin Bake

Another wintery meal for dinner over at my place. What I really like is how easy it is and it is nearly like another version of shepard's pie! The use of pumpkin adds to the sweetness and the pine nuts adds a lovely crunch to an otherwise boring dish!



We froze this and had it for dinner on a weeknight- the flavors are even better then.


Spiced Lamb and Pumpkin Bake
1 kg of pumpkin chopped
500 grams of lamb minced
1 cup of peas
1 red onion chopped
2-4 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of chilli powder
1 tsp of garam masala
minced garlic

pinenuts

1/2 cup of milk
seasoning

Preheat oven 200C.

Cook pumpkin in boiling water till soft. Mash with some milk and season. Set aside.

Meanwhile fry garlic and onion till soft. Add lamb mince and cook till it almost done. Add peas and all spices. Add a little water if needed. Cook till done (Around 10 minutes). Season. Spoon in casserole dish. Spoon mash pumpkin over it and sprinkle pine nuts. Bake for 30 minutes.

Honey Roasted Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot Soup

I love my Kenwood FP920 Multi Pro food processor. It was my parents and grandmother's wedding present to us. My mom knows how much I have been wanting a food processor and surprised us by getting us one. She did not need to do that because we thought our family commitment to travel to all our wedding celebrations is a big gift enough

Mom is always curious to how I use the food processor/blender (or what they term as liquidizer). I remembered our old chunky one being stored away in the SG kitchen, rarely being taken out to use as it was quite cumbersome. This kenwood sits on my kitchen benchtop (even though our kitchen is extremely small) and I still go "awww" when I walk passed it.

I love my thick wintery soups. Hence it is no surprised that our first debut dish from the kenwood baby is Honey Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot soup! Mom and I are big fans of pumpkin soup so this is for you till you next come to Australia (seriously, she is a big fan, we carry tins of pumpkin soup back to SG for her... much to the amusement to the other nurses at the hospital she work in).

Look out- more dishes from our Kenwood food processor. I made quite a few soups and even made cake batter out of it. and cheesecake base is no longer a problem with a few whizzs!



Honey Roasted Spiced Pumpkin and Carrot Soup
1.5 kg of Butternut Pumpkin diced
1 kg of carrots diced
1 red onion diced
1 cup of honey
1/4 cup of olive oil
2 tsp of cumin
2 tsp of chilli powder
1 tsp of garam masala
seasoning
4-6 cups of low sodium chicken/vege stock

Toss all veges in spices, honey and oil. Roast veges for around 45 mins. Place roasted veges in a big pot and add stock. Boil for around 20 minutes and cool. Taste. Add seasoning if needed. Put soup in batches into blender. Whiz till smooth. Transfer back to pot and heat. Serve with toasted cheese bread or just by itself.

This is my first entry to Weekend Herb Blogging. It's Host's Dhanggit Kitchen's little girl's birthday!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY dearie. Dhanggit's blog is one of the inspiration baking sites I go to regularly..all those french makes me drool.



Butternut Pumpkin belongs to the family of squash. One thing I love about the nutty taste of this vegetable is that it can be made into creamy mash or soups without the added fat. Not only that, it has the added nutrition of betacarotene which then converts to Vitamin A in our bodies- Great for our eyesight and other degenerative diseases.

Speedy Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin soup is another classic. You can't really fail with this. It's low-in fat, delicious, creamy and it fills you up. The first time i tasted the soup was college. It was late and that was the only item they have left in the cafeteria. I was skeptical at first. I mean, how good can pumpkin taste right?

At first taste, I was.... surprised. Creamy and smooth... mmmm.. OK, so that version probably contained lots of cream in it but that didn't stop me from going back again and again and again.

So I learned the hard way.... especially after gaining 10kgs after first year of college!!!

A good pumpkin soup need not have cream in it. =)

Speedy Pumpkin Soup

1 kg butternut pumpkin- chopped in bitesize pieces
2 cups of vege stock
herbs of your fancy.
salt n cracked pepper

toasted almonds.


1) Microwave pumpkin pieces on high for 10 minutes.
2) Boil stock. Add pumpkin and herbs. Remove from heat and cool.
3) Use hand blender- whiz it through till smooth.
4) return to heat. Stir gently till heated through.
5) Ladle and sprinkle toasted almonds.
6) Serve with cheesy bread! =)


PS- roasting the pumpkin will bring out a sweeter flavour. Previously, I roasted red onions, pumpkin and red capsicum to create a rich soup.