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Harvest Time - Pumpkin

Posted by Bel
From Spiral Garden

Pumpkins are my most favourite vegetables. We have a lot of visitors from overseas (WWOOFers on our farm) and it’s amazing how few of them are familiar with this wonderful vegetable. I think they’re more commonly known as “squash” in the US, is that right?

Here in Australia it’s Autumn - harvest time. We’re harvesting lots of pumpkins, with still more to come through into early Winter.

So I thought I’d share some of my favourite recipes with those who are also harvesting. And for those who aren’t - here’s some inspiration to plant pumpkins soon!

Pumpkin Risotto
1 whole small Jap pumpkin, cubed in 2cm pieces
1 medium brown onion, diced
2L+ boiling water with 1.5 tblspn Massell Chicken-style stock powder
4 cups white rice
1/2 tsp dried Italian herbs or 1 tbsn fresh

Dice onion and pumpkin, saute in a large, heavy-based pot in a little olive oil until golden and softening. Add the rice and stir for approximately 1 minute. Add about 1L of the water with stock powder added. Stir until absorbed.
Add remaining water and half-cover pot over medium heat so rice absorbs water, stirring often. Have extra water at hand to keep risotto moist and stop it sticking to the base of the pot.
When risotto is soft and creamy, add some freshly ground pepper. Serve with some steamed green vegies and grated cheese.

Pumpkin Soup
1 whole large Jap pumpkin
3 large potatoes, peeled
2 large brown onions, peeled & quartered
few large cloves garlic, peeled
Massel Vegetable Stock Powder
oil
pepper

Roast pumpkin, onion and garlic in a little olive oil until browned. Boil potatoes, diced, in about 3L of water with 2 tbspn stock powder. When potatoes are soft, pour in roasted vegetables and boil for a further 10 mintues. Blend with stick mixer. Add freshly ground black pepper. If soup is too thick (depends on the pumpkin), add a splash of milk if you wish. Serve with bread. Freezes well. Pumpkin and lentil soup, with added cooked red lentils and some extra spice is a wonderful variation on this recipe. You can also add sweetcorn, cannellini beans, croutons, cream and other ingredients to make the most of the abundant harvest.

Pumpkin Fruit Cake
250g butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed pumpkin
2 cups wholemeal flour + 1 tsp baking powder
250g mixed fruit of your choice, diced

Cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs and beat well one at a time. Add the pumpkin, flour with baking powder and fruit. Mix well and bake at 170 degrees C or until brown on top and inserted skewer comes out clean. *Tip* At harvest time, boil or steam pumpkin, mash and freeze in 1-cup portions in the freezer. Then you have pumpkin for this cake (and other recipes) for months to come.

Pumpkin & Spinach Frittata
900g pumpkin, sliced thinly
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tbspn olive oil
6 eggs
1/2 cup cream
40g spinach leaves
sprinkle of parmesan & grated cheddar

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Bake pumpkin, brushed with oil and garlic, till tender. Line baking dish with paper. Whisk eggs and cream and season. Layer ingredients in dish & bake for 25 minutes.

Pumpkin Lasagne
lasagne sheets
500g chopped pumpkin
olive oil
medium onion, chopped
clove garlic, crushed
3/4 cup ricotta cheese
1/3 cup tomato paste
3/4 cup mozarella cheese, grated
1/2 cup tasty cheese, grated

Cook & mash pumpkin. Add olive oil, onion and garlic. Place a layer of pumpkin, lasagne sheets, half the ricotta... Then lasagne sheets, tomato paste, etc, etc until ingredients are used up and dish is topped with cheese. Bake at 180 degrees C for around 35 minutes or until pasta sheets are cooked through. *Tip* Frozen pumpkin, as suggested for the fruit cake, is fine for this recipe too!

I also use pumpkin in curries, with mashed potato, in quiches, in any casseroles or stews, as roasted small cubes through a green salad or cold roast pumpkin pieces in a salad wrap... As I said, it’s my very favourite vegetable! Please feel free to paste or link to your favourite pumpkin recipes in the Comments section! Happy growing and cooking!

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Posted by Bel , Links to this post , 18 comments
Labels: In the Kitchen - Recipes, Organic Gardening - Vegetables

Australian damper bread baked over campfire coals

by Eilleen
Consumption Rebellion

I love bush camping. I love the quiet. For me, bush camping replenishes my soul. Bush camping was probably my very first introduction to a simple life (except I never thought of it that way of course). It was through bush camping that I learned how to cook over a campfire.

One of the best things about bush camping is making damper. Damper bread is very similar to soda bread and was traditionally made by stockmen (Aussie version of “cowboys”) who often trekked through very remote areas of Australia for months at a time with only very basic rations. Thus, the ingredients are also very basic (and very easy to make):

3 cups of flour
1 tsp of baking powder
Pinch of salt
About 80g of butter
1 cup of cold water

Choose a spot where you can make a fairly wide fire pit. On one side of the pit, build up your campfire.

Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Rub butter in until you get a breadcrumb-like texture. Make a well and add 1 cup of cold water. Mix the whole thing with a knife until everything is wet. Take out of bowl and shape into a nice round loaf.

Now place the bread in a camp oven or wrap in alfoil. By this stage, your fire would’ve burned down. You may now want to transfer some of the fire on to the other side of the pit (so you can continue to cook other food or just to keep warm). Leave plenty of the coals from the “old fire”.

Dig a little shallow well from the old fire. Place camp oven or alfoil-covered bread on top of hot coals. Being a woodfire, time can vary but I would recommend checking it around the 15-20 min mark to see if it’s done.

You can also try damper using a normal oven. Bake at around 180 degrees Celsius (or around 350 degrees Fahrenheit) for about 20-30 mins.

Slather with lots of butter or even sprinkle some cheese.

Picture courtesy of taste.com.au

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Posted by Eilleen , Links to this post , 6 comments
Labels: In the Kitchen - Recipes

Homemade Ginger Beer

by Julie
Towards Sustainability

We ditched commercial soft drinks at home couple of years ago now, in an effort to eat more healthily and reduce our waste. At that point I started making fruit cordials and ginger beer instead, and they are so simple, I don’t know why I wasn’t doing it before then.

Homemade ginger beer is something everyone’s Mum seemed to make when we were kids, but I hadn’t had any for years when I got around to making my first plant. What a shame though, it is delicious! So refreshing on a hot day or after a good gardening session :-) Be aware that because the yeasts in it ferment in order to produce the soda-type bubbles, it is very slightly alcoholic, so don’t offer it to non-alcohol drinkers, and watch how much the kids drink! I limit my kids to 1 glass of a sugary drink per day - including cordial, ginger beer and pure fruit juices - anyway as I feel that a lot of refined sugar in their diet is unhealthy.

Anyway, to start off you first need to make a ginger beer “plant”, to get the yeasts beginning to ferment:

Ginger Beer Plant

Pour 300 ml (1/2 pint) of tepid, chlorine-free water (filtered or rainwater) into a clean bottle or jar, and add:
* a large pinch of dried yeast OR 3-4 organic sultanas (there are wild yeasts living on their skins),
* 1 heaped dessertspoon of dried powdered ginger, and
* 1 heaped dessertspoon of sugar (I use raw sugar or honey for a richer flavour).

Stir to dissolve the sugar. Cover with something that will keep the critters out but allow natural yeasts present in the air access the “plant”, such as a doily, milk bottle cover, or a piece of muslin or tulle fastened with a rubber band.

Each day for seven days, add a teaspoon of ginger and a teaspoon of sugar and stir to dissolve. Your plant should froth very slightly on top after a few days, this is a sign that the yeasts are doing their work. After seven days, your plant should now be ready to use!

After you have strained the plant to make the ginger beer (see recipe below), divide the residue in half. Use half to make a new plant for yourself, and the rest to make a new plant to gift to your friends, family or neighbours. When they are all happily growing their own plants, you can discard the other half to your compost heap or worm farm.

To make a new plant, rinse out your container, add the halved reside to another 300ml (1/2 pint) of tepid water, with a heaped dessertspoon of sugar, and stir to dissolve. Treat this the same as a new plant: add another teaspoon of dried ginger and a teaspoon of sugar each day for seven days.

Now that your plant has grown for a week, you can make your ginger beer and bottle it:

Ginger Beer

Firstly, strain your ginger beer plant through some clean muslin or similar, into a jar, reserving both the liquid and the strained plant.

To 5 litres (5 quarts) of water in a large saucepan, add 3 cups of sugar (again, honey or molasses will give richer colour and flavour). Heat gently and stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the juice of two lemons, and the finely grated zest of one of the lemons, plus the liquid from the strained ginger beer plant. Mix well.

Bottle into clean, plastic bottles, capping loosely*. Leave to sit on your kitchen bench or in your pantry for 5-7 days, to allow them to ferment a little. You will notice little bubbles rising to the top or clinging to the sides of the bottles after a few days. Refrigerate at that point, and enjoy :-)

*It is important that you cap the bottles loosely, because the ginger beer will ferment over the next week, producing the characteristic carbon dioxide bubbles which gives the ginger beer it’s lovely zing. If you cap the bottles tightly you run the risk of the carbon dioxide building up pressure in the bottles, and overflowing and fizzing all over your kitchen bench, or possibly even exploding! Not pretty ;-) I also prefer to reuse cleaned plastic soda bottles, just to be on the safe side, as they have more ‘give’ than glass bottles.

It’s easy, cheap and tastes great, so have go :-)
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Posted by Julie , Links to this post , 16 comments
Labels: In the Kitchen - Recipes, Living Well on Less