Spiralized Pasta with Butternut Squash

A spiralizer take on our family favourite! Learning from my previous spiralizer experiences, I cooked the sauce until it was completely dry, in a frying pan that seemed way too big for it. I spiralized three courgettes on the tagliatelle setting, and added them once the sauce was dry. After a few minutes, they suddenly collapsed and let out all of their water, which rehydrated the sauce enough to coat the "pasta". I served it immediately, topped with grated parmesan, and the whole meal was fantastic!

Butternut Squash and Red Onion Galettes

Frozen puff pastry is a wonder for making the simplest meal look super-fancy. These were a whiz to make and you could leave them in the oven after assembly, ready to switch it on half an hour before you want to serve them. My recipe was inspired by this page.

Ingredients

• Four sheets of frozen puff pastry
• olive oil or butter
• Three red onions
• Half of a large, or a whole small butternut squash (about 600g)
• a large handful of fresh sage leaves or 2 tsp dried sage
• 50-100g blue cheese (to taste)

Method

Defrost the pastry, preferably slowly by leaving it out on the counter, while you do the rest of the cooking. Thinly slice the red onions into rings, or if you're in a hurry, half-moons. Peel and chop the butternut squash into bite-sized pieces. Finely shred the sage leaves. Gently fry the onion and squash in 2-3 tbsp of oil or butter, stirring occasionally, until the onion is soft and translucent, and the squash is golden and just barely beginning to break up. Turn off the heat and stir through the sage leaves, and season very well with salt and pepper.

Heat the oven to 180 C. Lay out a couple of large baking trays and cover with greaseproof paper, then brush with melted butter or oil. Lay out each piece of puff pastry on the lined tray and spoon a quarter of the mixture into the centre. Roughly fold up the sides -- I find it's easiest to fold up each corner, then crimp the new small edges to stop the corners unfolding again. If you like, you can brush the pastry with oil, milk, butter, or egg, but I find the frozen stuff is fine without. Bake for 15-20 minutes, until the pastry is puffed and risen, and cooked where it is in contact with the tray. Remove and top with crumbled blue cheese, and serve with a simple salad of bitter lettuce dressed with a splash of red wine or balsamic vinegar.

Pumpkin Chilli

Finding myself with a surfeit of pumpkin from the garden, and a craving for chilli, I searched around until I found this recipe. It really is a delicious combination, and you won't even notice that this is not a 'con carne'. That said, I love to throw in a little chorizo or bacon to smoke things up a bit. I modified the ingredients slightly, since I don't know what was in their 'chilli powder', but I assume you wouldn't want an Indian-style chilli powder, and that's all that's available here. You can leave this in the fridge for a few days and the flavours will keep developing.

Ingredients

• 1 medium red onion, chopped
• 2 red or green peppers, chopped
• 750g butternut squash or eating pumpkin, peeled and chopped
• 100g of smoked bacon or cured chorizo, finely diced (optional)
• 4 garlic cloves, crushed
• 2 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground paprika
• 1/2 to 1 tsp chilli flakes (up to you)
• 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 bay leaf
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1 can diced tomatoes, including the liquid
• 2 cans kidney or black eye beans
• 300-500ml vegetable stock
• 2 avocados
• sour cream (optional)
• crispy tortilla strips
• fresh leaf coriander (optional, for garnish)

Method

In a large Le Creuset or sauce pan, sautée the chopped vegetables (onion, pepper, squash, garlic) and bacon or sausage, if using, in one to two tablespoons of olive oil on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until the onions are translucent. Turn the heat down to medium-low and add all of the spices canned ingredients and stock, and stir. Don't use all of the stock if it looks like it will make the chilli very runny, but feel free to top up as it cooks if it looks too dry. Cover for about one hour, stirring occasionally.

By the time your chilli is done, the butternut squash should be nice and tender and the liquid should have reduced a bit, producing the hearty chilli consistency that we all know and love. Serve the chilli in individual bowls, topped with diced avocado and sour cream, if using. Use the strips to eat mouthfuls of chilli!

Stuffed Zucchini or Pumpkin Flowers

I made these just before I left for a trip to the US, abandoning my veggie garden just as it was bursting into flower. Fortunately there were far more pumpkin flowers than we could ever keep alive to turn into pumpkins, and making these was surprisingly simple. I have no idea where you would get them in Australia if you're not growing them yourself. If you do have a vegetable garden, it's worth growing a pumpkin vine just for the flowers. They're incredibly hardy vines with surprisingly good tolerance for heat, and will happily produce flowers from late spring all the way to early autumn. I've had less success with courgettes, although their flowers do work a tiny bit better for this, because the base of the flower (where it joins the stem) is less likely to be bitter.

Ingredients:

• 12 courgette or pumpkin flowers, picked just before they split and open
• 100-200g ricotta
• generous handfuls of basil
• zest of 1/3rd a lemon
• salt and pepper
• an egg, lightly beaten
• a couple of slices of bread, blitzed to breadcrumbs
• olive oil

Clean the flowers of any insects and dirt. Finely shred the basil and combine with the ricotta, then season to taste with salt and pepper. Combine the basil and lemon zest with the ricotta. Make a small hole in each flower, usually wherever they are about to split lengthwise first. Stuff each flower with ricotta, then press the flower petals back together. Dip in egg, then breadcrumbs to coat. Either bake for 12-15 minutes at 200C or deep fry for 2-3 minutes (in batches), depending on how decadent you're feeling.

Nigel's Roast Pork Belly

I'm spending most of this winter travelling and working really hard, so not too many updates for the next couple of months. But here's a winter warmer we took the time to make on a rainy Sunday, and which then fed us for the rest of the week. A good recipe, although you really need to take it easy on the orange; a little zest goes a long way, when it's inside the meat and isn't evaporated off by the oven!

Wagamama Week: Pumpkin Curry

I am a big fan of pumpkin curry; the sweet, earthy, melting flesh works amazing well with warming spices, and somehow becomes even more flavoursome when cooked nearly to destruction, unlike, say, the potato. I have two pumpkin curries I commonly cook, along with 101 other pumpkin-related recipes. So I was certainly willing to road-test the Wagamama version, which they claim was a one-off special that became so popular, it was added to the main menu.

Ingredients (Quantities in brackets are my revised suggestions):

• 100g brown rice
• 1 clove of garlic
• 1/2" piece of ginger root
• 1/2" piece of galangal root
• 2 lemongrass sticks
• 300ml hot water
• 1/4 tsp salt (1 1/2 tsp)
• 1 tsp sugar (3 tsp)
• 100g canned coconut milk (140g)
• 1 small pumpkin (1/5th of a Japanese pumpkin - about 400g)
• 2 courgettes (1)
• 6 button mushrooms (12 or 0)
• 4 baby sweetcorn
• handful of sugarsnap peas
• 4 x 1" cubes of tofu (don't bother)
• 2 handfuls of baby spinach (don't bother)
• handful of chopped coriander

Set the brown rice cooking according to its packet instructions.

Peel and grate or finely dice the garlic, ginger, galangal and lemongrass, or whiz in a little blender until a fine paste (you'll probably have to double or triple the quantity to get enough friction for a blender to work). Fry in a good glug of vegetable oil over a moderate heat for 6-8 minutes, stirring until softened and fragrant but not coloured. Add the hot water, bring to the boil, then add the salt and sugar; simmer for 20 minutes until reduced by half (I had to cover mine, as it reduced much more quickly than that.)

Meanwhile, peel and deseed the pumpkin, and cut into bite-size chunks. Scoop the seeds out of the middle of the courgette and cut into bite-size chunks. Halve the mushrooms and sweet corn. Stir fry the vegetables for 2 minutes -- I let mine rest occasionally so they picked up a bit of colour. Stir the coconut milk into the reduced sauce and then pour over the vegetables, add the tofu if using, then simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until the pumpkin is tender. Serve the curry with the drained rice, sprinkled with the chopped coriander.

Verdict:
Not bad. Nowhere near as good as either of the two curries I already know, but ok. The quantities they suggested were distressingly large for two people; I couldn't help but scale back the quantity of pumpkin (from a whole one to 1/5th of one!) and we still had enough left over for lunch the next day. The tofu didn't stand up to the treatment it was given; I definitely prefer mine fried to give it some bounce and crunch. I don't know what the spinach was for... looking pretty in their photo? And having all of those different vegetables in there made the curry lack focus; it was a bit too much of a jumble. I'd say either up the mushrooms, or take them out altogether. The sauce was extremely under-seasoned. I would add half a red chilli if you like a bit of spice, and the sugar and salt quantities given were insufficient by a factor of 2-3. I'm glad I used the full tin of coconut milk; their suggested quantity wasn't coconut-y enough. It also felt weird to eat a curry that had no spices in it.

Roast Pumpkin and Pear Soup

I've come down with a cold after working in Melbourne for a week, so need nice bland comfort food to cheer me up. Yesterday the SO made an excellent chicken soup, which I always crave demand the first day I have a cold. Today I needed more soup, and I was inspired by Really Not Wanting to Go Shopping, so Googled what we had in the fridge, and found this recipe. It sounds like a completely bonkers combination, but somehow, it works perfectly! I put the oven on, asked the SO to cut up a huge wedge of pumpkin, then slumped under a duvet while everything roasted. A little work with the blender and, bam,  comfort food.

Ingredients:

• 1/5 large pumpkin -- about 400g
• a pear -- doesn't have to be ripe
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• chicken or vegetable stock
• dukkah -- substitute with toasted, salted sesame or sunflower seeds if you can't get hold of it
• sour cream

Preheat the oven to 220C. Peel and cut the pumpkin into 1-2" chunks. Halve and core the pear. Put the pumpkin and pear in a large roasting dish - preferably with the pear skin-side down with a little room around it, and the pumpkin in a nice big pile. Drizzle the pumpkin with a little vegetable oil and dust the cinnamon over the top of the pears. Roast for 35-40 minutes until the pumpkin is tender right through, and the pear is soft and caramelised. Blend the pumpkin with enough hot stock to make a soup of your desired consistency -- probably about 200ml. Serve the soup topped with dukkah, half a roasted pear, and a generous blob of sour cream.

Pumpkin Pangrattato

Pumpkin was cheap at the market. Turns out that's because it has almost zero flavour at this time of year (midsummer). I have written down the basic recipe, which comes from Nigel's Tender, a book I have struggled to use well since it's aimed at someone growing vegetables in a much more temperate climate. I certainly remember the pumpkins in Cambridge being sweeter than the sad specimen I cooked tonight. Anyway, I include in italics the ingredients to include if you suspect your pumpkin is lacking a certain joie de vivre. And I'm toning down the amount of chilli: we had to have a yoghurt afterwards to cool down!

Ingredients:

• 750g pumpkin or butternut squash
• 3 cloves of garlic
• 1/4 tsp dried chilli flakes
• 1 1/2 tbsp rosemary leaves
• zest of an orange
• a handful of parsley leaves
• four handfuls of breadcrumbs
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 40g butter
• segments of an orange

Peel and deseed the squash, then cut into ~2cm pieces. Steam for 15-20 minutes until just tender. Crush the garlic into a frying pan with some olive oil and fry gently until just beginning to colour. Meanwhile, finely chop the rosemary and parsley leaves, and zest the orange. Add the herbs, chilli and orange zest to the garlic, then tip in the breadcrumbs and mix well; fry for a further 3-4 minutes until fragrant and just beginning to crisp.

Tip the pumpkin into a large roasting tray and taste; if it's lacking in flavour then season with the sugar, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Tip over the breadcrumbs and dot with butter. Roast at 180C or on a moderate bbq for 35-40 minutes until the crumbs are deep gold and the pumpkin is tender. If you like, stir through the orange segments before serving.

Farfalle with Savoy and Pumpkin

Another wonderful vegetable that is coming into season is the Savoy cabbage. Not the sad pale white cabbage that falls to sock-smelling pieces as soon as it is cooked, but the delicious bouncy dark leaves that can be plunged into boiling water, or quickly fried, and still retain their savoury bite and nutty aroma. It also lasts forever, even out of the fridge... and it takes a long time to eat a whole head! Tonight's recipe was borrowed from Jamie Oliver, and then edited by the SO into his own version.

Ingredients:

• a quarter of a pumpkin
• a few rashers of bacon
• 1 clove of garlic
• a handful of thyme, leaves stripped
• 5-6 large leaves of Savoy cabbage
• 250g farfalle or other pasta
• a big chunk of Parmesan

Cube the pumpkin and roast for 30-40 minutes, until soft and golden. Shred the cabbage into fine strips. Slice the bacon thinly and fry for a few minutes until cooked; add the garlic and thyme, cook for a further minute, then add the shredded cabbage; cover and cook for five minutes, shaking or stirring every so often to prevent it sticking. Meanwhile, cook the pasta according to its instructions, or until al dente. When the cabbage is tender (but not overcooked!) and the pasta is done, drain the latter and serve topped with the former, the pumpkin, grated Parmesan, black pepper and (as Jamie would have it) a glug of very nice olive oil.

Pasta with Tomatoes and Butternut Squash

This is a huge fallback recipe for us - in fact for my whole family. The basic flavours are all there: tomatoes - sharp, squash - sweet, bacon - umami, Parmesan - salt, and herbs for depth and I guess any bitterness that one might want in food! It's really easy to put together, especially if you have leftover sausages and/or roast butternut squash or pumpkin lying around in the fridge, as we frequently do. But I'll give the recipe 'from scratch' assuming no shortcuts.

Ingredients:

• one small, or half of a large butternut squash, or equivalent amount of tasty eating pumpkin
• a good handful of fresh rosemary or oregano, cleaned and chopped (or 1-2 tsp dried)
• a couple of sausages, or 5-6 rashers of bacon
• four ripe tomatoes, or a tin of chopped tomatoes
• five cloves of garlic
• a chunk of Parmesan cheese

Cube the butternut squash, and if you have time, roast it in a 180C oven for 40 minutes tossed in the herbs and a little vegetable oil, until golden and singed at the edges. If you don't have time, just cube it and toss with the herbs. Grill or fry the sausages or bacon until cooked, then cut into bite-size pieces.

Chop the tomatoes (remove the skins first if you're picky). Heat a little olive oil in a large frying pan and crush in the garlic; fry over a low heat for 30-50 seconds until golden and fragrant. Add the chopped tomatoes and stir. If you didn't roast the butternut squash, add it now, and simmer for 5-10 minutes until the tomatoes have softened and reduced into a sauce. This is also a good time to cook your pasta.

When the sauce is cooked, add the cooked sausages or bacon, and roasted butternut squash if you didn't add it earlier. Warm through, and serve over drained pasta, which you can toss with a little pesto or crème fraîche if you like.

Laksa Lemak

This is a slightly vegetable-fortified version of a very seafood-heavy Singaporean soup from my humungous Asian cooking compendium. The whole house now smells of prawns but it was worth it :)

Ingredients:

• 10 raw prawns (or more if you're hungry)
• a large handful of rice vermicelli
• 1 tsp dried shrimp paste (don't inhale, lol)
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into big pieces
• 1 tsp galangal powder
• 6 candlenuts
• 1 stem lemongrass
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• a 200g chunk of pumpkin, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 200ml of coconut milk (or thereabouts)
• a large handful of frozen peas
• one lime
• fried tofu, cooked crab or fish cakes (add if you're very hungry)
• a quarter of a cucumber
• a small bag of beansprouts

Peel and devein the prawns; reserve the flesh in the fridge and put the heads and shells in a stockpot. Cover with at least 300ml of boiling water and boil for 30 minutes, to produce a rich prawn stock. Drain and discard the heads and shells. Soak the rice vermicelli in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain.

In a food processor, blend the shrimp paste, onion, galangal powder, candlenuts and lemongrass, then fry for 7-8 minutes, turning frequently, until the mixture has darkened and reduced a little. Add the prawn stock and simmer for twenty minutes, then add the pumpkin and cook for a further five -- or until the pumpkin is almost done. Stir in the coconut milk, frozen peas, cooked vermicelli and add the raw prawns. Bring up to a simmer and cook for a few minutes; turn off the heat as soon as the prawns are cooked. Juice in half of the lime, and cut the other half into wedges.

Slice the cucumber thinly and add to the bean sprouts in a separate bowl; add the lime wedges to decorate. Serve the soup in deep bowls, topped with the extra protein if you're very hungry. Take handfuls of salad and top the soup, add a splash of lime juice and soy sauce and eat the salad with the soup. Yum!

Snapper Fillet and Pumpkin Mash

Been having a crazy busy couple of weeks so falling back on a lot of previously-tested recipes, like this one for a robust marinade for some yummy snapper. This time the carbs are helpfully provided by a couple of potatoes, augmented by a few chunks of pumpkin five minutes before being boiled to tenderness, then fluffed into a coarse mash with a swirl of creme fraiche.

Mushrooms, butter beans and pumpkin scone

Just a super-quick meal of fallbacks tonight: a punnet of mushrooms fried with two cloves of crushed garlic, a bag of broad beans, podded, boiled and dressed with mint, lime and olive oil, and Nigel's lovely pumpkin scone.

Pumpkin and Rocket Risotto

The carcass of the chicken from the other night boiled down to some great stock, and I used a good half of it in this lovely risotto, full of flavours I was simply craving. The rocket I bought turned out to be very spicy, so it needed a little more cooking time than a milder leaf like watercress.

Ingredients:

• 250g pumpkin, peeled and diced
• 100g feta cheese (optional)
• two sprigs of rosemary
• half a white onion
• a stick of celery
• half a carrot
• two bay leaves
• 200-300g of risotto rice, depending on how hungry you are
• 500-700ml of good chicken stock (vegetarians obviously substitute vegetable stock)
• a generous handful of rocket
• pumpkin seeds, to scatter over

Roast the pumpkin, rosemary and feta (if using), drizzled with a little olive oil, at 220 C for half an hour, until golden and tender. Meanwhile, finely chop the onion, celery and carrot, and fry for a few minutes, until the harshness of the onion has cooked away. Add the bay leaves and rice, fry for a further minute, then add the stock a third at a time every five minutes, stirring well with each addition, to bring the gluten out and make the risotto creamy.

When the rice is cooked to your liking (I prefer mine with just a tiny bit of bite), stir through the rocket and roasted pumpkin mixture, carefully so as not to break up the pumpkin. Serve immediately, scattered with pumpkin seeds.

Pumpkin and Chick Pea Curry

Sometimes I crave a really warming, satisfying meal full of carbs and veggie proteins. I was really hungering for the sweetness of pumpkin and earthiness of chick peas, along with mellow spices and rice. So I trawled around on the internet for 'pumpkin and chick pea curry', and found quite a few recipes. Sadly, 90% of them involved adding 'curry paste' or 'curry powder' to the basic ingredients. Then I found this nice blog, where a fellow craving-strucken foodie had been inspired by a TV show to create the kind of recipe I wanted, right down to the neat little coriander leaf garnish. My coriander had wilted in the fridge, and I didn't have quite the same selection of spices or number of frying pans, but I did manage to create an extremely tasty and quick dish that really hit the spot. We stirred a few tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon of mustard with our brown rice, and found that the lemony flavour complimented the curry nicely. Naan or chapatis would also be tasty. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 small onion, chopped
• two cloves of garlic, crushed
• 2 teaspoons grated ginger
• 2 bay leaves
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 pinch cinnamon
• 1 pinch dried red chilli flakes (or more, to taste)
• 2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 1 heaped teaspoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 500g eating pumpkin (squash), peeled, seeds removed and cut into cubes
• 1 chicken stock cube
• 150ml boiling water
• 340g tin of chickpeas, drained
• a small handful of fresh coriander, washed and chopped

Set your rice cooking, or chapatis warming, as you prefer. Fry the onion over a low heat until golden and soft. Add the garlic, ginger and bay leaves, and fry for a further minute. Add the spices and again, fry for a further minute. Add the pumpkin and water, and dissolve in the stock cube. Cover and simmer for 8-10 minutes, until the pumpkin is tender. Switch off the heat, stir through the chick peas, and allow to warm through. Depending on your pumpkin, you may find that your curry is either too watery or too dry; if the former, remove the vegetables from the pan and vigorously boil down the liquid until it is thoroughly reduced, then recombine. If it is too dry, add a little water. Serve with your carbs and a garnish of fresh coriander.

Pumpkin, Feta and Rosemary Pizza

A few weekends ago we were out shopping in Cannington, which we've found a useful place to buy pretty much any and all non-food items. This time we were at a barbecue store, ostensibly to pick up barbecue tools, but as it turned out, mainly to buy random new things like skewers and a pizza stone! We had a little trouble with it at first as the instructions are impossibe: you're supposed to heat it in the oven, and meanwhile make your pizza completely, with toppings etc on top of the raw dough. Then you take the hot stone out of the oven and "with a quick flick of the wrist" transfer the raw pizza to the stone. Or in our case, "with a lot of cursing, and burning, clutching hands, transfer a messy goop of what used to be a pizza to the stone". The first one wasn't worth photographing.

This time we cheated and made the pizza ON the stone, then put the whole thing in the oven. It came out a little soggy on the base, so this isn't the best solution either. I think what we'll do next time is put the stone in the oven, roll out the base and prepare the toppings separately, then bring the hot stone out, put the base on, and THEN add all the toppings. In the meantime here is one of our favourite pizza recipes.

Ingredients:

• One pizza base
• 250g tasty eating pumpkin
• 2-3 sprigs of rosemary
• a fat clove of garlic
• 2-3 tomatoes
• 1 tsp oregano
• 150g feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Peel and chop the pumpkin into smallish dice (about 1cm on a side). Place in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil and tuck in the sprigs of rosemary. Roast for 20 minutes or until golden and tender. Meanwhile, finely dice the tomatoes, then crush the garlic into a frying pan with some olive oil and fry for one minute, then add the tomatoes, and the oregano. Sautee until the tomatoes have collapsed and most of the liquid has evaporated; about 7 minutes. Dice the feta cheese into the same cube size as the pumpkin. Roll out your pizza dough, place on the stone, spread over the tomato sauce, then add the pumpkin and feta. Bake for 20 minutes or until the crust is risen and golden and the toppings are beginning to crisp.

Stuffed Aubergines with Pumpkin and Feta

Not much to report tonight; we followed this recipe over on BBC Food, omitting the feta (as we'd run out), and swapping the walnuts for pine nuts, and it worked out splendidly. We served it with some cous-cous and apricots, and some sliced tomato with balsamic for a little acidity. Great to be in a country where you can get such lovely varieties of pumpkin!

Pumpkin and Goats Cheese Lasagne

One of my two favourite vegetarian lasagne recipes, this combines sweet roasted pumpkin with soft goats cheese and a garlicy tomato sauce into a taste explosion. I've adapted it from my memory of a Nigella Lawson recipe; hers is in her Christmas book and uses butternut squash. As usual, I used a Crown Prince - still £3 per 4 kg pumpkin in the market!

Ingredients:

• 1.2-1.4 kg good pumpkin, unpeeled weight
• 2 tsp dried or fresh thyme or rosemary
• 1 white onion
• 1 red onion
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 glass of white wine
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 x 400g tins of tomatoes (chopped or plum)
• 2 tbsp tomato puree
• 250g of fresh lasagne sheets, or 180g dried
• 375g of soft, white rindless goat's cheese
• Parmesan cheese

Peel the pumpkin, discard any string and seeds, and chop into large (~1.5") pieces. Toss with the herbs, 1 tsp of salt and a little vegetable oil; roast at 200C for 35 minutes until tender and caramelised. Meanwhile, finely chop the onions and fry over a low heat for 10 minutes, until softened. Crush in the cloves of garlic and cook for a further minute. Deglaze the pan with the white wine and stir until the alcohol evaporates. Add the bay leaves, tomatoes and tomato purée; cover and bring to a simmer, then cook uncovered for 20 minutes until the tomatoes have broken up and the sauce has reduced by about 10%. Season to taste.

Pre-cook your lasagne sheets if they demand it. Slice the goat's cheese into rough ~cm-thick circles. In a deep lasagne dish, add:

1. a few tbsp of tomato sauce
2. lasagne
3. tomato sauce
4. half of the roast pumpkin
5. lasagne
6. tomato sauce
7. half of the goat's cheese circles
8. lasagne
9. tomato sauce
10. the rest of the pumpkin
11. a layer of lasagne
12. tomato sauce
13. the rest of the goat's cheese circles
14. a layer of lasagne
15. a few tbsp of tomato sauce
16. a generous grating of Parmesan cheese

(This is why I use a deep lasagne tray!) Cook in the oven at 170 C for 45 minutes, or until golden and bubbling. Rest for at least 10 minutes before cutting: if you can make this an hour ahead, it tastes better for it. It also keeps excellently in a cool place; somehow the flavours become even more sweet and delicious over time. We usually reheat it in pieces in the microwave, but if you plan to make it for guests on the following day, then you can cook it for 35 minutes the first time, chill until needed, then cook again in the oven for 35 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, then serve.

Tonight we served it with a shredded gem lettuce and a splash of balsamic vinegar, and garlic bread. I've never made garlic bread before, so I followed the excellent Joy of Cooking instructions. Take a baguette and slice it width-wise into circular coins - but don't cut all the way through the bread. Melt a few slices of butter in the microwave, and crush in a clove of garlic per person. Open each gap between the bread 'coins' and spoon in a little garlicy butter. Wrap in foil and bake at 200 C for twenty minutes, then bring to the table and unwrap in a cloud of garlicy steam. Yum!

Pumpkin Bread

The saga of the Crown Prince continues! I could have made something I'd already tried but NO! It's time to make something new! I did adapt this from the very helpful Breadmaker Bible; it's a really nice guide if you're making bread for the first time and even covers sourdough. However I disagree with her on using instant fast-action yeast in everything; I find reactivating normal dried yeast gives a better result. Also, you can see if it's still working - the fast-action stuff can go 'off' and your loaf comes out a brick, whereas you know if your reactivated yeast has given up the ghost before you risk any ingredients.

The original recipe uses sweet potato but of course here I use up some more pumpkin. I found it easier to chop and steam the remaining 1kg of pumpkin I had lying around, and then mash 200g of it, than to try to cut out and cook just 200g worth. I nearly pre-toasted the sunflower seeds but you shouldn't: plenty will protrude from the finished crust and these will pick up a nice golden colour anyway. I was also surprised to add them at the start and not on the beep, since some seeds and nuts can be broken up by the bread-maker and put too much oil into the dough, but this didn't happen with the sunflower seeds. As usual, if you don't have a breadmaker, you can do the kneading yourself, rise, knock back, rise again and bake in an oven for 45 minutes at 180C.

Ingredients:

• 50ml boiling water
• 1 tsp granulated sugar
• 70ml cold water
• 1 tbsp dried yeast: I use Allinson Dried Active Yeast; comes in a 125g yellow tin
• 2 tbsp vegetable oil
• 2 tbsp mild runny honey
• 200g mashed pumpkin
• 50g sunflower seeds
• 1/2 tsp (preferably freshly) grated nutmeg
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1/2 tsp ground ginger
• 50g wholemeal bread flour
• 370g strong white bread flour

Put the boiling water in a small pyrex bowl and dissolve in the teaspoon of sugar. Add the cold water and then stir in the tablespoon of dried yeast. Leave for 10 minutes; it should produce a frothy head and smell sour and yeasty. If it doesn't, go buy some new yeast!

Put the yeasty water in the bottom of the breadmaker, followed by the rest of the ingredients. Set it to basic white 2lb option. Remove promptly and cool right-side-up on a wire rack. Allow to settle for at least 10 minutes before cutting.

Savoury Pumpkin Pie

Another crafty use of pumpkin! Still munching our way through the Crown Prince: this recipe used about half of the 4kg monster. Once again, delicious sweet flesh with body and flavour: it really works well here as it's meltingly soft against the crisp buttery pastry. The only sad thing about this pumpkin is that the seeds are so enormous, they don't roast well in the oven to give a good snack.

Anyway, this recipe works well for six people as the carbohydrate portion of a main meal, or as lunch on its own. It would be brilliant to make a few as part of a large buffet. In my opinion it should always be served warm. It keeps well, but the pastry may become soggy if reheated in the microwave, so be prepared to use the oven if you want to recover the freshly-cooked crispness. Also bear in mind this takes 1.5-2 hours from start to finish, as there is a lot of cooking time.

Ingredients:

• 1.3-1.5kg of peeled and deseeded pumpkin (budget 1.8-2kg of raw pumpkin)
• vegetable oil
• cinnamon
• 375g puff pastry
• 1 egg, lightly beaten, for brushing

Preheat the oven to 200 C. Cut the pumpkin into small cubes and steam for 15 minutes, until tender. Tip the pieces into a roasting tin, add a generous pinch of cinnamon and a few tbsp of vegetable oil, season well and toss to coat. Roast for 45 minutes without turning: the edges will crisp and go lightly golden. When cooked, crush the pumpkin into a coarse mash.

Cut the pastry in half, and roll each piece out to fit a baking sheet. Place a sheet of greaseproof paper on the tray, then a layer of pastry, and spread out the filling over the top. Brush the edges of the pastry with the beaten egg, lay the other layer over the top and crimp the edges together. Using a sharp knife, make two or three slits on the top, so that the steam can escape as the pie cooks. Brush the pastry over with the remainder of the egg and bake for 25 minutes. Nigel Slater's original recipe calls for you to wait for 5-10 minutes for the pie to settle before cutting, but you will find that very difficult :)