Smashing Pumpkins - Winter Recipes

This is a pumpkin appreciation post. Next to carrots, my second favourite vegetable gets a walloping in Autumn and Winter. This year, I am averaging one butternut squash a week, because they are compact enough to carry from the Farmer’s Market in my backpack and locally grown, of course.

When I lived in Australia, I would use a lot of Queensland Blue pumpkins, but I am also partial to Golden Nugget and Kabocha when I can get them. Baked, mashed or slow-roasted and sticky, they are a perfect food IMHO, needing little intervention from me to taste spectacular. So for my last post of the decade, I am giving you three easy recipes celebrating some deep pumpkin love.

First I give you a zingy, citrus-y soup guaranteed to nourish and satisfy whilst staving-off any winter colds or sore throats with a fiery hit of ginger. Next up, a spiced and sweet-ish scone you can make in a skillet. It goes well with the soup, or as an afternoon treat with jam and butter, or even as a slider bun for a bbq on your next camping trip.

Finally, we give you a rich, creamy broth with a deep umami flavour from portobello mushrooms. This epic soup is punctuated with hearty chunks of pumpkin and carrot, thickened with peanut butter and bulked out with some silky rice noodles. A simple bowl you can assemble easily when you need the type of comfort only soup noodles can deliver.

And with that, I bid you farewell for 2019, thank you for reading our blog, liking our images on Instagram and following along on our adventures in and out of the kitchen. See you in 2020 for the best year yet!

Happy holidays from my kitchen to yours,

Vanya x

NOW LET’S COOK SOME PUMPKINS…

Pumpkin, Ginger and Citrus Soup

Ingredients:

1 leek, diced
1 sweet potato, diced
2 carrots, roughly chopped
1 large butternut pumpkin, chopped into small pieces
1 cube vegetable stock
750 ml water
2 mandarins, juiced
½ orange, juiced
1 tablespoon ginger powder or 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger root
1 teaspoon miso (I used Genmai, brown rice miso, but white Shiro miso would be good too)
pinch sea salt

Instructions:

In a large soup pot soften leek in olive oil on a low heat for 2-3 minutes.
Add all vegetables and sea salt and stir through leeks. Cook on low for 10 minutes, to soften everything. Give the pot a big stir every 2-3 minutes.
Add ginger, citrus juices, water and stock and bring to a boil, then reduce to medium-low heat to gently bubble away.
Add miso, taking a ladle of the liquid out into a cup and stirring in the miso until it dissolves, then adding it back to the pot.
When the carrot feels soft, pour soup into a blender and blend on high for 1-2 minutes. You may need to do this in batches. Alternatively use an immersion blender directly in the pot. (van friendly!).
Garnish with vegan sour cream, chopped chives, toasted seeds, smoked paprika and ground black pepper. This soup goes well with the scones below too!

This next recipe for Spiced Pumpkin Skillet Scones is designed for #vanlifers or campers wanting to make afternoon tea over a fire or in a tiny kitchen without an oven, but of course, you can make them at home. You can bake them in the oven but they will be a little denser and slightly dry on the outside, so brush them with some milk before baking them on a tray for 12-15 minutes at 180ºC. You really won’t believe the fluffy texture and spongey density you get even without gluten, butter or eggs!

Spiced Pumpkin Skillet Scones

Makes 12 scones (about two batches in a medium-sized skillet)

Ingredients:

2 cups all-purpose gluten-free baking flour
1 ½ teaspoons bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon pink Himalayan sea salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons Autumn spice mix (or use cinnamon/nutmeg/cardamom/clove/allspice)
3 tablespoons coconut sugar (or sub for maple syrup and add to wet ingredients)
5 tablespoons vegan butter
⅓ cup almond milk (plus more for brushing if you bake them)
¾ cup mashed pumpkin, (I used butternut squash)

Instructions:

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl until well mixed.
Rub in butter until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add milk and pumpkin mash and mix just until a dough forms, put in the fridge for 10 minutes.
Put some flour on a flat surface and knead dough to increase the fluffy crumb you want to get then roughly push the dough into a 2 centimetre (1 inch) thick slab with your hands.
Use a jar, cup or cookie cutter to cut out scone shapes. (I use the coffee basket from a cafetiere!)
Heat a skillet on medium heat, or even better put it over a fire!
Drop 2-3 scones onto the skillet, and cook for 4-5 minutes on each side, but don’t let them burn! Cook in batches until all done, turning down the heat if it gets too hot.
Eat hot with nut butter and jam, dunk in pumpkin soup or as a toast alternative for breakfast. They also work as slider buns with a grilled mushroom, and spicy mayo inside!

A gluten-free, vegan scone with a good fluffy crumb is a small victory for me.

The perfect friend to a creamy latte or spicy chai tea.

Who needs an oven, these scones are perfect every time!

Pumpkin and Peanut Curry Noodle Soup

First, you make a curry paste, BUT you can skip this step and buy one if you prefer, however, this one has fewer ingredients and is super fragrant and the quantity will be more than you need for this recipe so you can store in a jar in the fridge for up to a month and use as a curry base another time. Alternatively, use our Cupboard Cleanout Curry Paste, it’s a forgiving recipe you can tweak by adding whatever you have in the pantry and also makes enough for multiple meals.

Ingredients:

Serves 4 as a main course
Curry Paste

1 white onion, chopped roughly
A thumb-sized piece of ginger, peeled
6 garlic cloves, peeled
2 tablespoons fennel seeds
2 tablespoons coconut oil
2 tablespoons curry powder
1 tablespoon cumin
1 tablespoon peanut butter
coarse sea salt and ground pepper to taste

Soup

3 limes, 1 juiced & 2 for serving, halved
1 red onion, sliced into thin wedges
1 leek sliced into thin coins
4 carrots, peeled and sliced diagonally in 1cm pieces
½ butternut pumpkin, chopped into large pieces
8-10 portobello mushrooms sliced thick
4 cups water, boiled
1 cube of vegetable bouillon
Coconut oil for cooking
1 can coconut milk

Instructions:

In a blender add the first nine ingredients and blend until a smoothish paste forms.
Soften leeks and red onion in a large saucepan with a lid, adding a pinch of salt, grind of pepper and a heaped tablespoon of coconut oil. Keep on medium-low until they start to soften, about 10 minutes.
Add 3-4 tablespoons of the curry paste, and fry for 30 seconds to a minute until the fragrance wafts up from your saucepan.
Add carrots, pumpkin and 1 cup of boiled water with stock cube dissolved in it. Bring heat up to medium and put lid on for 10 minutes, stirring every so often and making sure nothing sticks.
Add mushrooms and the rest of the water, put on the lid, bringing everything to a simmer.
The soup will get darker and richer as the mushrooms cook down, when the carrots are almost soft, add the coconut milk and heat through for 5 minutes then switch off the fire, resting the soup for 10 minutes, or longer.
Serve with steamed flat rice noodles or brown basmati rice, lime wedges and some carrot tops or mint if you like a little herb action.