Looking at the calendar and seeing the Halloween is near I am almost sure that everybody has too much pumpkin. I love pumpkin, but there is always too much of it. As I hate food waste, I always roast all the pumpkin I have leftover, squeeze extra water out of it, and keep the puree in the freezer. The flesh is easy to use for soups, cakes, and risottos and it lasts there forever. Today's recipe is also based on the pumpkin puree, but in case you don’t have that waiting in the fridge, just roast the cubes of pumpkin in the oven and use the puree fresh. In this case, you don’t need to squeeze out all the water, just use it instead of some of the stock.
What do you do with all the pumpkin leftover from Halloween? Let us know in the comments!
Pumpkin Risotto
Serves: 2
Cooking time: 30 min
Ingredients:
1 medium onion
1 stalk of celery
1 tsp olive oil
1 cup arborio rice
¼ cup dry white wine
1 cup of pumpkin puree
1 ½ tsp ground turmeric
1 ½ cups of hot vegetable broth
3 tbsp butter
½ cups of grated parmesan cheese
The juice from ½ lemon
Salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions:
Chop the onion and celery thinly. Sweat them in oil and around ¼ of the butter in the bottom of a saucepan for 5 minutes until the onion becomes slightly translucent.
Add the rice to the pot and heat for another minute or so while stirring.
Pour in the wine and let the rice absorb it.
Next up add the pumpkin and turmeric to the rice, keep stirring and let it absorb lightly.
Start adding hot broth, one ladleful at a time, and slowly let it absorb. Only add another ladleful once the previous one has been absorbed.
Once you feel that the rice is almost done (this takes around 20 minutes), add the last ladleful of broth, mix in the butter, parmesan, and lemon juice, cover with a lid and leave to rest for 5 minutes.
Serve immediately, otherwise, it will get cloggy. It is nice to add roasted beetroots on top of the risotto.
By Kadri Raig
Kadri is a food blogger and yoga teacher from Estonia. She loves to spend time in the kitchen, but most of her recipes are simple and don’t take more than 20 minutes of active cooking time. She thinks that everybody can find time to cook healthy food at home, it is just a question of planning. "I work in an office full time, teach yoga 7-8 hours a week and write a blog. So if I manage to cook most of my meals, then so do you!" Connect with Kadri and enjoy many more of her delicious healthy recipes on her website here: www.kahvliga.ee.