Creamy, Comforting, Pumpkin Stew

A brilliant way of using leftover rice

A Crown Prince pumpkin from my local Irish grocers - this one will last for weeks in my kitchen.

My fellow fireflies and wholefood sprites,

I am loving autumn. All those pots of steaming goodness, fogged up windows, crunchy leaves, blue skies and woolly socks. I even love the shorter days, and the darkness descending upon us like a velvety veil.

But I especially love pumpkins. Irish supermarkets rarely stock the local, organically grown varieties which is a total shame as they are one of my favourite ever veggies.

Pumpkins are also inexpensive. I bought three organic Red Kuri pumpkins (see below) for a total of 7€. Pumpkins keep for ages in my pantry, and I’ll lovingly gaze at them like an award-winning Dahlia. Red Kuris are my go-to carb, roasted in a hot oven with ghee or coconut oil. Crown Prince (see the video below for a different variety) is also ace, and can fuel many dinners from just one single pumpkin.

It’s a shame Halloween has monopolised the pumpkin. They’re far too fabulous to be dismissed eleven months of the year.

Home-grown pumpkins at Wicklow’s organic farm shop, An Tairseach

Anything else worth shouting about?

Yup! A pumpkin’s sweet buttery flesh! It houses many nutritional doozies. Let’s list a few of them. There’s potassium for hangovers. There’s vitamin A & C for fancy immune ripostes against this season’s latest bugs (think Catherine Zeta Jones in Zoro). And there’s extra carotenoids for gorgeous dewy skin. That’s a lot of ammunition for a reputedly ghoulish vegetable.

On the antioxidant radar, pumpkins are almost up there with blueberries and spinach. We like antioxidants because they seem to help prevent the bad LDL cholesterol in our bloodstream from oxidising. This sounds promising because once oxidation occurs, the likelihood of cholesterol depositing onto blood vessel walls significantly increases. Not sure I like the sound of that.

Sugar pumpkins and Red Hokkaido a.k.a Red Kuri - my absolute favourite

All that is to say … I have a seriously good supper for you this week. It’s called Kitchari.

This recipe is like a brothy Indian dahl, but more poetic. That's because you can use leftover rice for half the recipe. High five for my zero-waste warriors!

Kitchari is always on the menu in our house after an evening meal that normally demands lots of rice (e.g. Mexican bean chilli, or curries). Like a software malfunction, we routinely make far too much rice. Luckily, there are as many recipes for kitchari as there are grandmothers in India. But all play to leftovers and good broth. My one is a simplified version, powerful and comforting.

Our saucepan of Kitchari will happily sit in the fridge for up to 5 days, getting tastier by the day. I love how it quietly supports me from the fridge, when midweek madness hits. Kitchari freezes beautifully too. Once defrosted, just plate it up piping hot with a dollop of live natural yoghurt and some roti or naan. Each spoonful promises to resuscitate personalities as well as limbs.