The Recipe Room

You might remember that I mentioned having a glut of sprouts on our allotment. Well, my wife Teresa loves pumpkins, and we grew quite a few last year. One of the recipes we enjoyed in the Autumn was this delicious pumpkin fusilli.

One of the reasons we love this recipe so much is the memories that it brings whenever we take a bite. We had a very enjoyable and memorable plateful of this on our honeymoon in Varenna, (Italy) by lake Como. Many people wondered why we chose to stay in Italy instead of traveling to a different country, as most newly-weds choose to do. However, we both love Italy so much, and often, we don’t take time to explore our own country. And I’m glad we did, because I had a lovely honeymoon and discovered one of our new favourite dishes!

Ingredients:

• 400g fusilli pasta
• 1 medium-sized pumpkin, or 350 ml pumpkin purée
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 onion
• 350ml vegetable broth
• 60ml natural yoghurt
• 60g grated Parmesan cheese
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200ºC. Cut the pumpkin into eight equal pieces. Sprinkle a little olive oil on each chunk, and roast in the oven. Remove and allow to cool, before scooping the soft flesh out.
2. In a bowl, combine the pumpkin flesh with the Parmesan, nutmeg and other spices.
3. In a frying pan, sautée the onion and garlic until soft. Then add the pumpkin mixture, vegetable broth, butter and brown sugar. Stir well and simmer over a medium heat for 10 minutes.
4. Bring a pan of lightly-salted water to the boil, and toss in the fusilli pasta. The pasta should be ready in a matter of minutes.
5. In the pumpkin sauce, add the yoghurt to lighten up the dark orange colour.
6. Mix in the pasta so that it is completed coated with the sauce.
7. Serve immediately with salt, pepper and grated Parmesan on top.

I recommend serving this pasta with a side salad like this crunchy sprout salad with pumpkin seeds and balsamic vinegar.