We had a left over pumpkin from Halloween as my 10 year son decided he was ‘too cool’ now to carve a pumpkin!! Had a quick flick through my collection of cook books and the beauty caught my eye from Jamie Oliver. I wouldn’t usually credit or use Jamie’s books now as the way he was able to dump all his restaurants and Fifteen academy due to debt whilst walking away scot free being a multimillionaire baffles me…..but that’s for another day…. Just turned me right off the guy…especially when you see other businesses struggle during the pandemic and rally around!! But rather get distracted in all that this recipe was actually quite tasty.

Pumpkin rice laksa soup ❤️.
Full on winter warmer.
Ingredients- 1 whole pumpkin or butternut squash, 2-3 chillies, 2 cloves of garlic, thumb size piece of ginger, 2/3 sticks of lemongrass, large handful of coriander, large tsp of five spice, 1 large tsp of cumin, 1 onion diced, 1 pint of vegetable stock, 200g of basmati rice, 1 tin of coconut milk, salt & pepper plus the juice of 2 limes.

Method – take the coriander and stalks, chillis, garlic, ginger, lemongrass, cumin, five spice and blitz in a food processor to create a paste.

Heat some oil in a large pan, add the onions along with pre-made paste allowing this to cook and come together for 10 minutes.

Add the pumpkin flesh with the vegetable stock bringing my it to the boil. Let this simmer for 15 minutes or so until the pumpkin breaks down.

Add the rice, cover and cook until the rice is ready.

Remove the lid then add your coconut milk, season well the add the lime juice to give it a twang.

Schoolboy error, don’t dive it straight away as it takes the skin off the roof of your mouth!!

The beauty about this dish was the cost. Made 6 meals from under £4 along with preventing food wastage as the pumpkin wasn’t carved. This was reheated and placed into red peppers which were then roasted plus taken to work as a soup which proved to a great decision due to the weather turning cold & damp. Enjoy.