Baked Pumpkin and Bacon Risotto

I found this recipe on the net the other day and was immediately taken with it. I don’t have a photograph of my attempt simply because we ate it all before I thought of it. I found it here Baked Pumpkin and Bacon Risotto on Best Recipes (they have pictures).
I love risotto, any which way you cook it, and this was a tasty combination. Of course I changed things, my recipe is below but it is very similar to the original just a few ingredients swapped out for what I had available.

This was readily (and surprisingly) devoured by an incredibly stubborn pumpkin hating 10 year old boy and even given the nod of approval from my 95 year old Grandmother who happily accepted the leftovers when I brought them down for lunch the next day. I’ll be making this again and again, probably swapping out ingredients each time to create something new.

Baked Pumpkin and Bacon Risotto

4 bacon rashers chopped
1 red onion diced
1 1/2 cups rice
2 1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2 cup white wine
60 g butter
1/2 butternut pumpkin peeled diced
1/2 cup parmesan cheese finely grated
1 pinch salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 190C. Lightly pan fry bacon until crisp, and cook onions in bacon
fat until transparent, about 5 minutes.
Place rice, stock, wine, butter, pumpkin, onion and bacon in an ovenproof dish and stir
gently to combine.
Cover with foil or lid and bake for 30 minutes or until rice is soft (took about 1 hour).
Stir in Parmesan, salt and pepper, then serve.

Pumpkin soup

Soup is wonderful. A bowl full of soup on a winter’s day is a fantastic way to have a tasty meal and provide yourself with a bit of warming comfort food.

While it isn’t winter here by any stretch of the imagination, I had a pumpkin in the refrigerator (butternut pumpkin or butternut squash for those who have different names for these things) and there is no soup that I love more than pumpkin soup.

Normally I eat my pumpkin soup with a generous dollop of Greek yoghurt in the middle but the last time I made it I opened the refrigerator and it was gone! Horror! My daughter had eaten the last of the yoghurt in one of her midnight refrigerator raids (dagger eyes her way) so it was necessary to make another plan. I was somewhat at a loss but after staring at the refrigerator contents for a good long while I decided to try chopped and fried bacon. Not bad. So that is what you see in the photograph here.
I will still reach straight for the yoghurt next time but the bacon idea was pretty darn good as an alternative.

Pumpkin Soup

1 butternut pumpkin, peeled and chopped
1 onion, peeled and diced
2 Tbls butter
Water
Dehydrated vegetable stock
Salt & Pepper

Melt the butter in a large pot.
Add onion and cook until transparent.
Add pumpkin and cook, stirring, for 5 mins.
Cover with water and boil until pumpkin is soft.
Add vegetable stock to taste (2-3 teaspoons)
Blend the soup in the pot with a stab blender.
Salt and pepper to taste.

Serve with a generous dollop of Greek yoghurt, chopped and fried bacon or whatever your personal favourite additive is.

Pumpkin Rice Quiche

I  had some pumpkin and some sweet potatoes that were near their use by date (even a little past it if the truth be told) but with careful peeling and chopping I was able to salvage 3 cups of mash at the end of the day. You have seen the muffins, now behold the quiche! This is a great way to use up left over rice (and pumpkin/sweet potato). I still have 1 cup of mash left….watch this space 🙂

Pumpkin Rice Quiche
Serves 6

2 cups cooked rice
2 eggs
3/4 cup cheese
2 Tbls chopped parsley
1 Tbls oil
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 bacon rashers, chopped
1 cup cold, cooked, mashed pumpkin (I used a combination of pumpkin and sweet potato)
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup grated cheese
1 Tbls chopped thyme

Preheat oven to 190C.
Grease a 23cm pie dish. Combine rice, eggs, cheese and parsley. Press into base and sides
Of prepared dish. Place on oven tray. Cook for 20mins. Cool
Reduce oven to 180C.
Heat oil and add onion, bacon and garlic, cook until onion is soft. Cool.
Combine onion, pumpkin, eggs, milk, cheese and thyme. Pour into crust.
Cook for 45 mins.

A little sweetness

Because of the following kinds of people, I felt the need to make something sweet. That and the fact that I had leftover pumpkin/sweet potato mash calling me from the refrigerator.

I know I am not alone in noticing this, and I can’t be alone in finding it very disturbing but the immediate escalation of nastiness in internet discussions is shocking to me. Is it the lack of face to face confrontation that makes people fly off the handle in ways they would never do normally or are there just those people out there that have little to no self-control and I have just been fortunate enough never to meet them? Silly things like you-tube videos and meme websites or more serious things like immigration debates on twitter, it doesn’t matter the forum, these people just lose it immediately and start throwing around words that decent people just don’t use in company.

It always seems to go thus:
Person 1: Here is my opinion, it may be ill considered and lack fore thought, but I am entitled to it.
Person 2: You are a stupid, ugly, fat $&*@%
Things degenerate from there, sometimes a thinking individual wades in trying to calm things down, in which case they cop a mouthful of abuse also, and it can go on for an age.

If these people are really so quick to anger and so unable to control their impulses I just hope to heaven that I never come across them by accidentally merging into traffic in a way that offends them. I may end up as a hood ornament or worse yet, a statistic. How do these people live day to day in the real world without getting the stuffing beaten out of them on a regular basis? Or are they able to relegate their lack of control to the computer room and act like a thinking part of normal society when they are in public?

I used to have a story book as a child with a picture of a troll inside, it was an ugly, mean, dirty, misshapen looking creature that was described as having little in the way of redeeming virtues. Not so surprising that this word has now been used to describe the type of person I am talking about here.

After being exposed to things like trolls we all need a little sweetness in our lives. Have a muffin…

Pumpkin Muffins

2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup mashed pumpkin (I used a combination of pumpkin and sweet potato)
3/4 cup fat-free sour cream (I used Greek yoghurt)
1/3 cup fat-free milk
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
Cooking spray
1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons brown sugar

Preheat oven to 190C.
Combine flour and next 5 ingredients (flour through salt) in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.
Make a well in centre of mixture. Combine pumpkin and next 6 ingredients (pumpkin through egg); add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist. Spoon the batter into 18 muffin cups coated with cooking spray.
Combine 1 tablespoon granulated sugar and brown sugar; sprinkle over muffins.
Bake at 190C for 25 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in centre.
Remove muffins from pans immediately; cool on a wire rack.