I had some pumpkin in the fridge left over from earlier this week, didn’t feel like soup, so I tried something from River Cottage Veg Everyday
This is the North African Pumpkin and Chickpea Stew, the recipe in the book was to serve 6, I halved it and still had plenty for tea with some left over for tomorrow – this is the halved recipe
2 tbsp olive oil
1 brown onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp turmeric
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
50 g red lentils
1/2 400 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed (just freeze the other half in a zip lock bag for something else)
250ml passata
Pinch of saffron threads
Bay leaf
Handful of parsley, chopped
Handful of coriander, chopped
150 g squash or pumpkin. I used butternut because it’s what I had.
25gm rissoni pasta
600ml veg stock
Method
Heat oil and fry onions over a medium heat until just softened.
Turn heat to low and add the garlic, celery, pepper, turmeric, cinnamon, ginger and sautee for a couple of minutes.
Add the saffron, lentils, chickpeas, passata, parsley and 1/2 the coriander. Cook for about 10 minutes.
Peel and de-seed the squash and cut in to cubes. Add to pan with the stock and bay leaf, simmer covered for about 20 minutes then add the rissoni and simmer for another 10 minutes.
Serve with some greek yoghurt, toasted slivered almonds, the rest of the coriander and the carb of your choice.
Don’t forget to take the bay leaf out!
Carbs
Quinoa – one of the only none animal sources of complete protein
Cous cous
Brown rice
Flat breads
My carb of choice at the moment is home made flatbread, really easy to make and you can use your imagination. I do a lot of my cooking by instinct so I’ll try to be reasonably precise with my description, mostly for me it’s go with the flow
1 1/2 cups of wholemeal Atta flour (you can get this with the other flours at the supermarket)
1 tablespoon of greek yoghurt
Pinch of salt
Teaspoon of Nigella seeds
A little slurp of vegetable oil
Water (can’t be exact just play it by ear)
Mix by hand in a bowl until it all comes together then knead for a few minutes until you have a soft dough, wrap in glad wrap and sit for 30 minutes.
Divide into 4 balls, roll out until about 10cm in diameter and cut roughly from the middle to the edge and roll into a cone, squish into a round again and roll out quite thin, this helps create some layers when the bread is cooking.
Lightly oil a fry pan and cook for a couple of minutes on each side
Voila!
The stew was fabulous by the way 
Next time I am going to whack in a fresh red chilli and some preserved lemon.
