Honorary sister Carrie D sitting in for the Bellysisters this week, talking about pumpkins and playing lots of songs about eating, cooking and growing food.

Recipes

Carrie’s Pumpkin and Red Lentil Vindaloo
¾ cup of red lentils
500g pumpkin roughly chopped
600g chicken pieces (optional)
1 medium white onion, chopped
4cm piece ginger, grated
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1T oil
¼ cup vindaloo curry paste
400g can coconut milk
2 handfuls spinach leaves

Other steamed vegetables can be substituted or added, including eggplant, beans, broccoli for a vegetarian version.
 
1/    Cook lentils in boiling ater until just tender.  Drain.
2/    Steam pumpkin until just tender.
3/    Combine chicken, onion, ginger and garlic and cook in oil for 5 mins.
4/    Stir curry paste into mix and cook until smells good.  
5/    Add lentils, pumpkin, coconut milk and cook until sauce thickens and chicken is cooked through.   Don’t overcook so that pumpkins lose their form.
6/    Remove from heat and add spinach leaves and toss so that they wilt.
7/    Serve with rice, plain yogurt and sliced cucumbers.


Ros’s Yellow Bird Cold Soup
2 litres vegetable stock, or 50/50 stock and coconut milk.
1 kg pumpkin peeled and cut into chunks
6 carrots peeled  & cut into chunks
2 yellow scotch bonnet chillies seeded and sliced
2 large mangoes peeled and flesh removed
ground pepper
4-6 sprigs mint

1/    In large saucepan bring stock to boil and cook pumpkin, carrots and chillies until tender. Remove and cool for 10 mins.
2/    Put in a blender and add mango flesh and blend it all. Add pepper to taste. Allow to cool and refrigerate and serve cold with garnish of mint.

Tips for using pumpkins –
-    bake in oven with lemon myrtle infused olive oil
-    add fresh mint to pumpkin soup
-    try baked pumpkin and feta pizza, or frittata
-    add baked pumpkin slices to salads

Playlist

The Duhks - Ole Cook Pot
Guy Clark – Home Grown Tomatoes
Tom Russell – Bowl of Red
Roy Bookbinder – One Meat Ball
Michael Reno Harrell – Sweet Sweet Sweet
Louis Prima – Banana Split For My Baby
Eilen Jewell – High Shelf Booze
Johnny Mercer – Save The Bones For Henry Jones
Johnny Hicks – Hamburger Hop
Doris Day – Tacos Enchiladas and Beans
Craig Chambers – Good Brown Gravy
Hayes Carll – Chickens
Big Town Playboys – Hungry Man
Craig Chambers – White Bread Blues