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Every October, as we approach Halloween, out come the pumpkins, and it’s important to do something with them.  And I am not talking about using them to persuade small children to eat up all their sweets.

Pumpkins are one of the magic ingredients of downsizing – LCD, sweet, full of fibre and absolutely delicious. And they fall slap-bang into the ‘fool your body that you are eating pudding whilst actually eating vegetables’ camp.

If, like me, you have a body that wishes to live on pudding but wants to look like it doesn’t, this is very helpful.

I developed my pumpkin habit when I was living in the Oxfordshire village of Watlington – yes, the one with the incredible cheese shop and the Orange Bakery – and one of the local farms,  Sandy Lane, grew the most astonishing variety.   I spent happy hours deliberating over the best one for my next recipe.   Currently I am very in favour of the grey-blue Crown Prince – partly for its texture and flavour, but it has to be said that its smooth skin being easy to peel is a big draw.  And that’s the fly in the pumpkin oil:  they require a rugby team to lift them onto the counter and peel and chop them up. Pumpkins are not for sissies.

Roast pumpkin and apple soup with zhoug and yogurt

Baked salmon with ginger garlic and lime

Puree of roast beetroot, onion, and apple

Lentils alla Veneto

Steamed Broccoli with lemon zest and olive oil

Roast pumpkin soup with apple, ginger, zhoug, and yogurt

The season of pumpkins coincides very happily with the apple harvest, and they go fabulously well together.

Like many things, I was introduced to zhoug by one of my food heroes, Ottolenghi.  On its own, it verges on being quite unpleasant, but its astringent burst of heat and spice gives an extraordinary counterpoint to the sweetness and comfort of the pumpkin and onion, especially if it is tempered by a dollop of Greek yogurt.

Serves 4 – 6

For the roast pumpkin:

• 1kg pumpkin, peeled
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped rosemary
• 2 teaspoons honey
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• Salt and pepper

1. Cut it into smallish chunks;
2. Put it in a bowl with the oil, honey, rosemary, salt and pepper, and mix well, making sure the pumpkin is well coated.  
3. Put on a baking tray and into a hot oven  – 200º /fan 180º / gas mark 6 – for about 40 minutes, turning from time to time.

For the zhoug

• A large handful of parsley and /or coriander
• 2 hot green chillies
• A pinch of ground cumin
• A smaller pinch of ground cloves and cardamom
• A good pinch of salt
• One crushed clove of garlic
• 2 tablespoons / 30g olive oil
• 2 tablespoons water

Blitz them all together in a food processor

For the onions

• 3 red onions
• 1 apple  
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• ½ inch of grated ginger
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped rosemary
• Stock
• Salt and pepper
• 15g butter

1. Finely slice the onions – lengthways rather than across the grain – and core and chop up the apple.  
2. Put them in a bowl, add the honey, rosemary, grated ginger, salt and pepper, and mix well.
3. Melt the butter in a sauté pan, then add the onions and apples and cook slowly for 15 – 20 minutes with the lid on; then take it off and add the pumpkin.  
4. Turn the heat up a little.  Cook for another 10 minutes to caramelise the onions and sauté the pumpkin.
5. Add enough stock to cover it well – you can add more stock later – simmer for 10 minutes, and then liquidise.

To serve: add a spoonful of zhoug and a dollop of yogurt, skyr, or goat curd

Diva Notes

Preparing pumpkin  

Assuming the rugby team is fully occupied at Twickenham, take a large, very sharp knife.  Sharpen the very sharp knife; do not try and cut a pumpkin in half with a blunt knife.

Find your sharpest, sturdiest peeler and tell it to get a grip.  

Take a deep breath; it will be tough.  If it all feels too much, bear in mind that the pumpkin will not only help you live to a hundred, but give you impressive muscles whilst saving you a fortune in gym membership.

Liquidising the soup

I always use a stick food processor for this: it does an excellent job, and avoids the big fat mess I am excellent at making when I transfer liquid from a saucepan to the food processor.

And talking of mess, I don’t add all the stock until I am actually going to use it: it is easier to liquidise – you don’t have to chase lumps of pumpkin around a watery saucepan, and the spatter-factor is greatly reduced – and it takes up much less room in the fridge or freezer.

Baked Salmon

This is one of the stalwarts underpinning my life: I often have some in the fridge – it’s incredibly simple, delicious and very filling, and more to the point, ready to eat whenever I am starving, have no time to cook, and doughnuts are grinning at me enticingly through the letterbox. You can add a couple of teaspoons of olive oil if you like, but it doesn’t need it.

Serves 6  

• 1kg filet of salmon
• Grated lime zest and ginger
• Crushed garlic
• A few sprigs of flat-leafparsley and thyme
• Salt and pepper

1. Descale and rinse the salmon, and lay it on tinfoil in a roasting tin.
2. Add the garlic, lime zest, ginger, parsley, salt and pepper.
3. Smear them well over the whole top surface.
4. Wrap it up and put in a hot oven (200º / fan180º /gas mark 6) till just cooked – about 15 – 17 minutes, depending on thickness of salmon.

Diva Notes

Descaling Salmon:This is a horrible job. Get the fishmonger to do it. You may need to be forceful; do not be fobbed off with excuses. If forcefulness fails, scrape them off with a knife into a plastic bag – the scales, not the fishmonger – so at least you won’t compound the misery by blocking up the sink.  If you cook salmon often, it’s worth getting a fish-descaler – no, I don’t mean marry your fishmonger: it’s a handy little gadget; I have one that’s attached to the back of a rather good garlic crusher I found in Italy.  

Roast beetroot, onion and apple puree

Before I started my downsizing mission, I used to make a beetroot puree that involved vast amounts of double cream and brown sugar. It was absolutely delicious. This has neither but is equally delicious – no idea why, but I thoroughly recommend it. And it's really delicious with the salmon.

Serves 4 – 6

• 2 beetroot
• 2 red onions
• 1 apple
• A pinch of caraway seeds
• 4 teaspoons olive oil
• A teaspoon of honey
• Balsamic vinegar
• Salt and pepper
• Optional: Greek yogurt or skyr

1. Heat the oven to 200º / fan 180º/ gas mark 6.
2. Peel the beetroot and cut into thick chips.
3. Peel the onions and cut into 6 chunks.
4. Quarter and core the apple.
5. Put it all in a bowl; add the oil, honey, caraway seeds and salt and pepper, and mix really well.
6. Roast in the oven until the beetroot are caramelised and soft – about 40 minutes, turning everything over half way through.
7. Puree with a stick blender till really smooth. Add the balsamic vinegar – and if you want it to be looser, thin it with milk or water.  It is equally nice with or without the yogurt.

Lentils alla Veneto

I discovered lentils in the Veneto when I was studying with Tito Gobbi and not quite becoming the next Diva superstar. But as we divas often say, who needs fame when you have lentils*.  This is a particularly good Venetian version. The Battuta refers to the very finely diced onion, garlic, celery and carrot that goes into practically every Italian dish except Tiramisu.  

*No, of course we don't, but one day we might.

Serves 4

• 250g (dry weight) lentils cooked with peppercorns, coriander seeds, and cardamom seeds taken out of the husk.
• Salt

For the soffritto:

• 1 small red onion
• 2 carrots
• 2 sticks of celery
• 4 cloves of garlic
• A few sprigs of thyme
• 4 teaspoons / 20 ml olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• Chilli – optional, and quantity depends on how hot you want to make it

For the Mustard Dressing  

• 3 tablespoons / 45ml olive oil
• 3 tablespoons / 45ml balsamic vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of grainy mustard
• 1 teaspoon of honey
• Salt and pepper

Cook the lentils in plenty of water for 30 minutes or so. Drain and add salt.

For the soffritto

1. While they are cooking, very finely dice all the vegetables  – the sofritto – and mix in a bowl with some salt and 1 teaspoon of olive oil.
2. If the thyme has woody stems, strip the leaves off – a fiddly job so use a skivvy if you have one to hand – and add to the diced vegetables.
3. Heat the remaining oil in a sauté or chef’s pan. You don’t want it too hot – just warm enough to let the Battuta know it’s about to get cooked.
4. Tip it in and cook at a low temperature with the lid on till they start to soften.  Then take the lid off and continue cooking till they are a tiny bit brown and fully cooked.  

For the dressing:  

1. Put the honey, mustard and a pinch of salt in a jar; stir them up together, then add the oil and vinegar.
2. Put the lid on the jar and give it a good shaking.

Add everything together and pour over a couple of tablespoons of the dressing.   You can eat it hot or cold.

Diva Notes:

Lentils

If you haven’t got time or are not in the mood, serve them plain with some good grindings of salt, pepper, and a little olive oil.

Dressing

Ditto. If you haven’t time, drizzle over some good quality balsamic and olive oil.

Dicing the vegetables

They need to be very finely diced, which takes time and can be tricky to get them uniformly fine. However, if you chuck them in the food processor and pulse them until they are fine enough, it takes about 5 seconds.

For the broccoli:

Steam generous amounts per head until just cooked, then sprinkle with salt, grate over some lemon zest, and toss in a smallish amount of olive oil.

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