Topic: Stairway to heaven

[pumkinlover]

Pumpkin soup for the next few weeks

[Obelixx]

Good haul but surely more than just soup?

Roast pumpkin?  Pumpkin risotto? Pumpkin curry?  Pumpkin and ginger cake?

[saddad]

Mine are in the garage but we had to process a couple last week, showing signs of developing moulds on the skin.

[Obelixx]

Didn't get a god crop this year cos of drought over long periods, especially April and May which meant  poor start.  We only have 2.5 Crown prince left and they're small but tasty and the chooks love the seeds.

[pumkinlover]

Good haul but surely more than just soup?

Roast pumpkin?  Pumpkin risotto? Pumpkin curry?  Pumpkin and ginger cake?

Oh yes lots more meals to use them in.  We've just had chilli which had some in, also any casserole gets some as a bulking agent. It thickens the base and takes up flavours so well.
Have you tried freezing slices then roasting?

The pumpkin and ginger cake sounds nice so next time I bake!

[gray1720]

We didn't have a great crop either, but still have a few sweet dunpling left - one of which is starting to "go" so will go in a curry on Tuesday, the smaller ones will be used to bulk out rubies, the larger ones will be stuffed with lamb mince and varying concoctions of spices.

It's a good job we still have a few as we are down to our last five spuds!

[Obelixx]

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/squidgy-pumpkin-ginger-loaf 

I tried sweet dumpling one year in the last garden but it didn't crop well at all.  I shall stick with Utchiki Kuri and Crown Prince.   Spaghetti squash and Butternut were a dead loss last year.

[George the Pigman]

Don't forget Pumpkin Soup! I've a cracking recipe for pumpkin cake as well.

[tricia]

Living alone I no longer grow the larger squash varieties and mostly stick to various butternuts  -  Waltham, Sucrene du Berry, Hunter and Winter plus my favourite Potimarron. With my poor arthritic hands making it ever more difficult to cut and peel them, I fear that I'll have to give up on the latter. In fact, I'm not sure I'll be fit enough to grow anything in my four raised beds this year. After more than a year I'm still waiting for an appointment to have a trapeziectomy done on my right thumb so I probably won't even be able to sow seeds anyway.

Today I did manage to make butternut and chestnut soup though, by first roasting the unpeeled squash and using a can of chestnut puree that had been languishing in the back of the cupboard and needed using up. The recipe was more or less from the Hairy Bikers  -  just tweaked a bit as I didn't have any whole chestnuts. The nutrients in the skin remained in the soup and blended into a lovely smooth, thick puree. I enjoyed a bowl of it with crunchy croutons for my supper tonight 👌.

Tricia 

[saddad]

Fingers crossed they can get round to your Trapeziectomy soon Tricia, waiting for work on my wrists but not even getting the steroid injections atm. Thankfully not interfering with my allotment gardening too much yet.

[pumkinlover]

Best wishes for the Trapeziectomy Tricia, it must be so frustrating when you are trying to chop up food.

Mr PKL does the work of transforming the squash into something that can be used so I cannot claim credit there.

George your cake sounds nice, any chance of a share?

[Vinlander]

Good haul but surely more than just soup?
Roast pumpkin?  Pumpkin risotto? Pumpkin curry?  Pumpkin and ginger cake?

I have to admit I've tried them all and considered them all inferior to the carrot equivalent.

OK so far so weird (since everyone else seems to love them).

It gets weirder - I have the same opinion about orange sweet potato and considered them almost indistinguishable from pumpkin, BUT just recently some duck stock needed using immediately & forced me to use both these orange disappointments in a single soup.

It was almost an epiphany - the two indifferent ingredients suddenly became much greater than the sum of their parts - now the flavour was delicious enough to rival carrots and different enough to be a valuable new ingredient.

Now I have to try Obelixx's list with the mixture (the roast would have to be some kind of mixed fritter).

I also need to try sweet potato & pumpkin and coriander soup, maybe even carrot, sweet potato & pumpkin and coriander soup.

I have already tried the orange triplet above in a basic Irish stew, and a spoonful of soft carrots was definitely improved by being in the liquid flavoured by the other 2.

I can't believe I'm the first person to have discovered this, so why doesn't every pumpkin recipe use orange sweet potato? (and vice versa).

Or do you have to distain them separately to experience this?

Cheers.

PS. I do collect food mixtures that are greater than the sum of their parts - but it's rare for them to be a big surprise. The main one before this was fresh live yogurt with ripe banana  mashed in, and poured onto cubes of really aromatic fresh melon (cantaloupe or ananas are better than honeydew).

[BarriedaleNick]

I've been making butternut and sweet potato soup for ages - might even throw a carrot in if I get a chance!
I bought a load of butternuts and squash over with me - I must go and check on them...

[Obelixx]

The BBC Good Food website has loads of recipes for both sweet potato and various pumpkins and I'm sure I've seen a stew or a curry that combines them but their search facility is contrary, to say the least, following recent "improvements" to their website.

I did a pumpkin and chick pea curry for dinner on Monday and it was very tasty.  Been wanting to do it for ages but needed a trip to the Vietnamese grocer in La Roches-s-Y to get the yellow Thai curry paste I needed.  I love pumpkin soups too but lunches at the mo tend to be frittata based as nobody's told our new chooks it's winter and they're supposed to slow down.  5 or 6 eggs a day all thru so far.  Happy neighbours too then as they get the spares.

[pumkinlover]

Beef and squash curry last night.
Mr PKL processed one squash a few days ago which wouldn't cook down. What he normally does is slice them up and remove the seeds then put them in a large pan on the stove. They sit there all day until we go to bed then are taken off and the next morning he skins them and we portion up and freeze for later use.
This one wouldn't cook at all and remained fibrous and unpleasant. All we can think of is that the growing conditions last year affected it.  I've never had this happen before.

[Obelixx]

Have found the recipe for squash and sweet potato curry on BBC Food.  It's very tasty and that black rice is a favourite too- https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/butternut_and_sweet_04563

[gray1720]

Just don't ever try to make risotto with black rice... it's probably very tasty but after two hours stirring the stuff you won't care any more!

[Obelixx]

There are all sorts of specialist rices for making risotto but black Venus/riso di venere is definitely not one of them.  I love it for its flavour and chewy texture.

[pumkinlover]

Just don't ever try to make risotto with black rice... it's probably very tasty but after two hours stirring the stuff you won't care any more!

Ah but being Nigella this isn't just any old black rice it's black Venus rice!

(okay I have no idea what the difference is! it just sounded very Nigellaish)

[Obelixx]

Ordinary black rice or wild rice is long and thin and its outer shell never softens, in my experience, so it's usually used in a mix with white rice.

Black Venus rice is a rounder, fatter grain with a lovely nutty flavour.   Takes longer to cook that basmati or Jasmine rice and isn't good for cookig with the absorption method. I use plenty of water, cook it for about 30 to 35 mins and drain when cooked.   

Keep an eye out for it in good supermarkets.   We love it.