Tuesday 13 November 2012

Cinderella and the Pumpkin

I suppose I've never questioned *why* cinderella went to the ball in a pumpkin-turned-carriage. If you have magic on your side you could turn anything into a carriage, surely?

Mr Me's sister donated us a pumpkin last week. I have to confess that I've never done anything culinary with pumpkin before but I now understand why cinders went to the ball in one...

It's big enough AND it saves her carving the stupid thing.

What do you do with *that* much pumpkin? When we were offered the pumpkin I was hoping to use this recipe from Woolly Green. Unfortunately this pumpkin wouldn't fit in my oven.

And I thought cutting up swede was tedious!
So I got on with the cutting, scooping and slicing and hoped inspiration would come to me. I had read a fab recipe for sweet baked pumpkin seeds that I thought I might try. So the scooped out innards sat and waited patiently for my attention.

Firstly, soup. A sweet potato and pumpkin soup. Mmm. Lunches for me and still portions left over for freezing!

Orange. So orange.

Next, soup for my sister! A kilo of it!

She can make the soup herself!

Er... now what? There is still so much pumpkin! I got researching and found this Sausage, Pumpkin and Sage recipe. It sounded tasty enough. So, with friendly company and countless bottles of wine we got to work! Part way through cooking the verdict was the same. Watery. Not quite tasty enough! So in went a sprinkling of chilli flakes. YUM! Better. The transformation came when I ate the leftovers for my lunch. Perfect. I would recommend the recipe with the switch from sage to chilli *and* less stock. The consistency the day after was, keeping with the fairy tale analogy,  just right!

Golilocks Sausage and Pumpkin Casserole
Now for the rest of the pumpkin. I was pointed to this on twitter - thanks TA! :)

Mmmm, this does look like a winner!
However, by this stage the pumpkin had been inhabiting my kitchen for *too* long and it was long past midnight. Cinderella was tired of this:

Cinders and the Giant Pumpkin!
The Nigella Thai option is going to have to wait. And that is pending the results of the great Frozen Pumpkin Experiment. The freezer is bursting with chunks of frozen pumpkin!!

Oh, and the seeds? I binned them in the end. It would seem that less is more when it comes to pumpkin!