Home cooking

Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion

Posted by Gary

I got this recipe from Lorraine Elliott, also known as, Not Quite Nigella (NQN).

Roast pumpkin Caramelised onion
Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion with pork sausage and green beans

Where has Yummy Lummy been lately?

Sorry dear readers for not posting much lately, life has been busy. Last week I had a personal project I wanted to focus on and complete.

Pumpkin

I’m very fond of roast pumpkin. It is sweet, and it readily takes on salt for the sweet and salty combination which goes so well together.

Good roast pumpkin gives me happy memories of Mum’s roast dinners with lovely caramelised pieces of roast pumpkin covered in the juices from the joint of meat or chicken she had been roasting. Mum managed to get that sweet and salty combination as well as some great mouthfeel with the black bits, which are the caramelised sugars from the pumpkin.

Lorraine suggests if cooking for a family a whole pumpkin makes sense and she provides some good tips on pumpkin preparation.

In my opinion, if you’re cooking for one, then maybe one of those convenient pre-cut packets of diced pumpkin from the supermarket will do.

I had to make a compromise because I like having a knife in my hand. It reminds me of when I was clerking in patients in the emergency department while a medical student. If the patient required surgery, we’d always say. “The touch and feel of cold hardened surgical steel.”

Green beans

I’m also cooking beans. I’m generally not too fond of beans because they feel squeaky on my teeth. I like the flavour, but like halloumi cheese, if I could avoid the squeaky feeling, I’d be happier.

My BFF (GC) mentioned that some olive oil and salt might make the beans more palatable. I gave it a go and GC is right. Tonight’s beans weren’t squeaky at all.

Ingredients

Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion

Pecan nuts, white onion, garlic, olive oil, and brown sugar
  • Pumpkin pieces
  • White onion
  • Garlic
  • Olive oil
  • Brown sugar
  • Pecan nuts
  • Iodised salt
Diced pumpkin and sliced white onion

Pork sausage

  • Pork sausage

Green peas

  • Green beans
  • Salt
  • Iodised rock salt
  • Olive oil
  • Black pepper

Instructions

Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion

Kent pumpkin (quarter)
  1. Unwrap the pumpkin and place it on a plate.
  2. Put the pumpkin and plate in the microwave oven and cook with microwave radiation on high power for between 2 and 3 minutes.
  3. Remove the pumpkin and with a dessert (or tablespoon) spoon, scoop out the seeds and the stringy bits.
  4. With a sharp knife, slice the pumpkin in 2 cm thick slices and then carefully cut off the pumpkin skin being careful not to cut your fingers.
  5. With the skin removed, dice the pumpkin into bite-sized chunks (see the photograph).
  6. With a sharp knife slice half a white onion and separate the layers.
  7. Thinly slice a clove of garlic with a sharp knife or a mandolin.
  8. Put a teaspoon of brown sugar into a dish and then cover with a few tablespoons of olive oil. Mix the brown sugar and olive oil with a fork.
  9. In a large mixing bowl, add the pumpkin, onion, garlic, sugar and oil and with your hands gently massage the sugar and oil all over the pumpkin and onion pieces. Make sure you massage the sweet oil to cover everything.
  10. Spread the sweet and oily pumpkin, onion and garlic on a baking sheet and season with some iodised salt and then put the tray into a hot oven. Initially cook for about 10 minutes and turn over the pumpkin on the tray. Then take a look every minute or so until the pumpkin and onion have taken on some colour. I like some black bits. It won’t be burnt, but it will be a bit crunchy.
  11. On another lined baking sheet spread out some pecan nuts and toast them in a moderate oven for anywhere between 5 and 7 minutes. Carefully monitor the pecan nuts because they will burn quickly. You don’t want to burn your nuts, they will taste bitter and yucky.
  12. When the nuts have toasted remove them from the oven and allow them to cool and then split them in half lengthways.
  13. When the pumpkin and onion have caramelised, remove them from the oven and put them into a large mixing bowl and just before serving toss through the pecan nuts.
  14. At this stage, you could also add some chopped parsley for colour.

Pork sausage

Pork sausage (uncooked)
  1. Remove a pork sausage from it’s packaging and when you’re putting the pumpkin and onion in the oven, add the sausage to the baking tray and cook it along with the pumpkin and onion.

Green beans

Green beans (uncooked)
  1. Add some cooking salt to some water in a saucepan and bring the water to a rolling boil.
  2. Remove the green beans from the bag and add them to the boiling water.
  3. Cook the beans for 6 minutes.
  4. Drain the beans once cooked and then put them into a mixing bowl.
  5. Splash in some olive oil and iodised rock salt and mix everything together.

Plating up

  1. On a warmed dinner plate spoon the pumpkin and onion to the plate.
  2. Place the sausage next to the pumpkin and onion.
  3. Place the oily beans onto some absorbent kitchen paper to remove some of the oil and then transfer the beans to the dinner plate.
Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion with pork sausage and green beans
Roast pumpkin and caramelised onion with pork sausage and green beans

How was it?

I really enjoyed this meal. It was easy to make and it was tasty. While the pumpkin and onion where the main feature, I was very pleasantly surprised to enjoy the green beans and not experience any chalky squeaky feels on my teeth. Thanks, GC, you’re a genius.

Dessert

For dessert I had some natural (no added sugar) yoghurt with two of my favourite fruits, viz., Kensington pride mango and red pawpaw.

Unsweetened natural yoghurt with Kensington price mango and red pawpaw

What else is happening in life?

Last week I was a little out of sorts but praise God, life is going well at the moment. Work is going well. My health is fine.

Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)

Posted by Gary
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
The Yummy Lummy Cooking for one podcast
Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)
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Lentils à la Dijonnaise (mustard and speck lentils)

I have a feeling this is the first time I’ve cooked lentils.

My friend GC regularly shares with me her photos of salmon, broccolini and lentils meals and I’m always a bit jelly because in my mind lentils require a lot of effort and I’m a somewhat lazy cook. GC’s lentils always look very attractive on her plate with her salmon and broccolini.

Lentils à la Dijonnaise

Anyway, GC has a friend who shares healthy eating tips, and lentils are a feature of her healthful eating plan. So I figured, why not give lentils a try.

I searched YouTube, and one of the channels I subscribe to has a lentils recipe which I thought would taste good, mainly because it has bacon (speck) in it. 😉

This bloke’s name is Stephane, and he’s French, but he lives in Australia, and he runs an on-line French Cooking Academy.

The recipe for this dish on YouTube.

Eating a healthy diet is essential. I was reading a paper today from the Journal of the American Medical Association. The focus was relatively lean Chinese people and their body mass index and how it correlated with liver and bile system disease. Pang Y, Kartsonaki C, Lv J, et al. Observational and Genetic Associations of Body Mass Index and Hepatobiliary Diseases in a Relatively Lean Chinese Population. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(10):e2018721.

I really need to keep an eye on my BMI.

Ingredients

  • 300 grams of green lentils
  • 900 mL of tap water
  • One carrot (sliced)
  • One onion (halved)
  • Two cloves (to penetrate the onion)
  • One sprig of thyme
  • Two bay leaves (or two leaves of Bay if you’re fancy pants)
  • One clove of garlic (or more if you have no feelings for people around you)
  • 150 grams of smoked speck (I didn’t weight how much speck I used, I just went with the vibe)
  • Two tablespoons Dijon mustard
  • Salt and pepper to season (please use iodised salt)
  • One nudge of butter
Green lentils, Dijon mustard, Onion, Cloves, Thyme, Garlic, Speck, Bay leaves, and Carrot
Water, lentils, carrot, onion with a clove stuck in, bay leaves, thyme, and crushed garlic

Instructions

  • Rinse the lentils in cold water and then put the lentils into the saucepan.
  • Then add the water (three times the volume of lentils, e.g. 900 mL of water to 300 grams of lentils).
  • Bring the water and lentils to the boil.
  • Remove the scum floating on the water with a spoon. I have no idea what difference this does, but apparently, French cooks do this. Not that I care about what French cooks do or think. 
  • Slice the carrot with a sharp knife or a mandolin and be careful not to slice your fingers open.
  • Half the onion with a sharp knife and again be careful. Blood in the lentils may add a little saltiness but is not usually required.
  • Insert a clove into the top of the dome of half of the onion.
  • Add the carrot, onion with the clove in situ, garlic, bay leaves, and thyme.
  • Add the speck,
  • Mix everything so that the water covers everything.
  • Do not salt early, salt after 20 minutes because the lentils will not cook properly (or so they say).
  • Cook for 30 minutes with the lid on with low heat. 
  • After 30 minutes, remove the aromatic vegetables but not the carrot.
  • Remove the speck and pan fry it for the finished dish.
  • Take some of the hot fluid and mix with the dijon mustard to dilute the dijon mustard.
  • Then pour the creamy thin dijon mustard back into the saucepan and gently mix everything. 
  • Serve the lentils in a bowl.
  • Add a nudge of butter. What is a nudge of butter? I have no idea. I used 50 grams of butter because that seemed like a good amount.
  • Add the speck to the bowl. 
  • Garnish with something green to make it pretty because all TV and YouTube cooks will tell you, “we eat with our eyes”. Now, what a stupid thing to say. I mean, sure you can pour small quantities of a liquid over your eyes to permit the collection of nutrients in your conjunctivæ. The nutrients will travel via capillary action down through the nasolacrimal ducts into your nasal passages where if you swallow hard, you can ‘consume’ the liquid. This approach is hardly an efficient way to eat a bowl of lentils.
  • Suppose you want to do as Stephane does add some wholegrain mustard for a contrasting taste and mouthfeel. I didn’t do this.
  • Add some pepper.
Cooked lentils and speck with a nudge of butter and discarded vegetables

Questions

What is speck?

In my simplistic way of thinking, speck is fancy bacon. It’s smoked pork belly.

There is also Italian speck (Speck Alto Adige PGI).

The nice thing about buying a prism of speck is you can cut slices as thickly as you like.

As you can see, I like to slice my speck to about 1 cm thick.

Speck
Lentils à la Dijonnaise

What are lentils?

Lentils are a legume. Legumes are essential in agriculture for the nitrogen-fixing bacteria which live symbiotically with the plant.

Lentils are an annual plant with a lens-shaped seed.

I didn’t know that Canada and India are where most of the world’s lentils are grown.

Lentils à la Dijonnaise

Are you worried about liver and bile system disease?

I’m prone to metabolic syndrome. I have a strong family history of diabetes mellitus and having been grossly obese in the past, I’m conscious that I need to keep an eye on not getting too much belly fat. My waist circumference and body mass index are features to monitor.

Chinese people have a long history of Hepatitis B virus infection associated-chronic liver disease. Fortunately, I don’t have HBV infection. However, I am unable to demonstrate immunity to HBV despite being immunised many times.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like lentils?
  • What’s your favourite lentils recipe?
  • Do lentils give you a lot of flatus? Should I avoid lighting any matches tonight? 💥
  • If you live in New South Wales, Canberra, Victoria, Tasmania, and South Australia, set your clocks forward tonight for daylight saving time which starts tomorrow.

Pork knuckle, sauerkraut, and apple sauce

Posted by Gary

Pork knuckle, sauerkraut, and apple sauce

Pork knuckle, sauerkraut, and apple sauce with potato mash and instant gravy
The outer packaging

Tonight’s meal is all about convenience. I went grocery shopping earlier and saw the slow-cooked pork knuckle in the display case of the meat section, and it caught my eye.

The last time I ate pork knuckle was with Dad in a Bavarian restaurant in Brisbane. The meal consisted of the pork knuckle with a heap of sauerkraut.

When I think of pork I’m conscious of the amount of salt and so I wanted something sweet to balance the meal. I chose some apple sauce.

Instructions on cooking

The convenience factor of this meals is the fact I used a mostly cooked piece of pork, Polish sauerkraut that I bought in a jar, Australian grown apple sauce in a bottle, and potato mash cooked with microwave radiation.

The whole meal took less than one hour to cook.

On the subject of pork, I’ve been reading about the detection of African Swine Fever in Germany. The African swine fever virus causes African swine fever. 

It’s a good thing this pork is Australian and not imported German pork.

Recipe

Ingredients

  • Slow-cooked Australian pork knuckle
  • Polish sauerkraut
  • Australian grown apple sauce
  • Potato mash
  • Instant gravy

Instructions

  • Turn on the oven and heat it to 220 °C.
  • Remove the pork from the packaging and dry off the surface with kitchen paper.
  • Put the pork knuckle onto a lined baking sheet with the rind exposed.
  • Cook the pork for about 50 minutes.
  • Remove the pork from the oven and allow it to rest.
  • Tear off the crispy crackling and set it aside.
  • Dissect away the cooked muscle meat from the bone.
  • Slice the meat and place it onto a dinner plate.
  • Spoon some sauerkraut onto the dinner plate.
  • Spoon some apple sauce onto the dinner plate.
  • Irradiate the potato mash with microwaves.
  • Place the potato mash onto the dinner plate.
  • Boil some water.
  • Put a tablespoon of instant gravy powder into a glass jug and then whisk through the boiling water.
  • Pour the gravy over the potato mash.

Photographs

The following block is a gallery of photographs. Click on one of them and then scroll through them to check out the pictures in all their glory. 

  • Polish sauerkraut and Apple grown apple sauce
  • Uncooked
  • Uncooked
  • Cooked
  • Cooked
  • Cooked
  • Pork knuckle, sauerkraut, and apple sauce with potato mash and instant gravy

Questions

Did you eat the whole pork knuckle?

The packaging suggests the pork knuckle is enough for five people. I ate the whole thing. Yes, I do feel full.

Why not cook everything from scratch? Why be so lazy?

Do you not know me? I’m all about efficiency.

I prefer the word efficiency rather than lazy. By being efficient, I have more time to do other things. For example, today, I watched a couple of movies and relaxed a little.

What’s so good about sauerkraut?

Well, it’s lactic acid fermented cabbage. Lactobacilli elaborate the lactic acid. In a Gram’s stain, especially of normal vaginal flora, lactobacilli are quite beautiful. They appear a deeply and evenly stained violet which is contrasted by the pink background proteinaceous matrix.

The only downside of sauerkraut is the potential for producing large volumes of flatus.

How was the pork knuckle?

It was good. The muscle meat was tender, and the flesh was moist and juicy. The crackling was crisp and not overly salted.

The sauerkraut and apple sauce complemented the pork to a tee.

Final thoughts

  • Do you like pork knuckle?
  • Do you like sauerkraut?
  • Do you agree that apple sauce and pork go together?

You cannot live on bread alone

Posted by Gary

At about this time of year, I see my American friends on-line going mad for pumpkin spice. According to Wikipedia, pumpkin spice is similar to what we might know as mixed spice.

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Pumpkin spice usually contains cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and allspice.

What I find odd is that pumpkin spice is used to flavour all sorts of things from coffee to pumpkin pies.

Tonight, I’m making a pumpkin soup, but it won’t be pumpkin spice as my American friends might know it. Instead, this will be a pumpkin soup with a spicy Asian influence using ginger, coriander, and a curry paste. Rather than using dairy cream, I’ll also use coconut cream.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.'”

Matthew 4:4 NIV
Pumpkin, streaky bacon, laksa paste, red onion, ginger, garlic, lime, coconut cream, and vegetable stock.

Equipment

  • Heat source
  • Saucepan
  • Stick blender
Coriander, red onion, garlic, lime zest, and ginger.

Ingredients

  • Bacon
  • Garlic
  • Ginger
  • Laksa paste
  • Cooking sherry
  • Butternut pumpkin
  • Vegetable stock
  • Coconut cream
  • Lime juice
  • Coriander leaves, stems, and roots
  • Red onion
  • Olive pane di casa
  • Butter
  • Ground cinnamon
Pumpkin, coconut milk, vegetable stock, streaky bacon, grated garlic, grated ginger, lime zest, lime, coriander, and red onion.

Instructions

  1. Slice the streaky bacon.
  2. Peel and dice the pumpkin.
  3. Grate the ginger.
  4. Grate the garlic.
  5. Chop the coriander leaves, stems, and roots.
  6. Finely chop the red onion.
  7. In a cold saucepan slowly heat up the sliced bacon until the fat renders.
  8. Add in the grated ginger and garlic and cook until soft.
  9. Pour in a little cooking sherry to deglase the bottom of the saucepan.
  10. Add in the diced pumpkin and laksa paste. Cover with vegetable stock.
  11. Bring the vegetable stock to the boil and gently simmer until the pumpkin is soft.
  12. Turn the heat off and blend the soup with a stick blender until it’s smooth.
  13. Turn the heat back on and coconut cream to the soup to make it silky smooth.
  14. Taste the soup and add some lime juice to enhance the sourness.
  15. Ladle the soup into a bowl and garnish with the chopped coriander.
  16. Serve with buttered toast that has had cinnamon sprinkled on it.
Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Questions

Are you into the pumpkin spice thing?

I think I’ve only ever had pumpkin spice in a pumpkin pie which I tried when I was a young fella. A lady at a church I used to attend made one, and it tasted good.

I’m not sure that I would be adding pumpkin spice to my coffee though. That said, I can appreciate how some ginger might go well in a frothy milk drink with some cinnamon and nutmeg.

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

What’s with the bread with an Asian soup?

Well, as per the quote, you can’t live on bread alone. 🤣😉

Why not have a little Italian bread with my Asian soup?

Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter

Final thoughts

  • Do you like pumpkin spice?
  • Do you like spicy pumpkin soup?
  • Have you ever had bread with an Asian flavoured soup?
Pumpkin spice soup and olive pane di casa with butter
It was a nice day outside

Garlic Udon noodles, coconut cream, pork belly, prawns, and choy sum

Posted by Gary

Tonight I cooked garlic Udon noodles, coconut cream, pork belly, prawns, and choy sum for dinner.

During the week, Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella posted a recipe for quick garlic prawns and spaghetti recipe, and it got me thinking that garlic prawns would be nice on the weekend.

In my refrigerator, I also had some strips of pork belly, which needed eating too, so I combined everything into a meal for Saturday night. 

Garlic Udon noodles, coconut cream, pork belly, prawns, and choy sum

Ingredients

  • Udon noodles
  • Coconut cream
  • Garlic
  • Choy sum
  • Pork belly
  • Fresh prawns

Instructions

  • Dry the skin of the pork belly strips and place into a hot (200 °C) oven for 45 minutes to get the crackling crispy.
  • Cook the Udon noodles in boiling water for about 7 minutes and then with 2 minutes to go, toss in the choy sum.
  • Rinse the noodles and choy sum in cold water and drain.
  • Heat a skillet with the leftover fat from the pork belly and sautée the garlic gently.
  • Add the noodles and choy sum.
  • Pour in some coconut cream and bring it to a boil and then reduce the heat to a simmer.
  • Add in the prawns and cook through.
  • Cut the pork belly into small pieces and add to the skillet.
  • Transfer everything to a bowl and eat with chopsticks.

The meal was delicious. The question is, is this Asian or Italian?

Garlic Udon noodles
Garlic Udon noodles, coconut cream, pork belly, prawns, and choy sum

I have no idea anymore what sort of food I cook. I take what I have bought and put it together into a meal I think will work. More often than not, the meal tastes okay. I don’t know that anyone else would like to eat it, but it keeps me going, and it keeps my imagination ticking over. In my mind, that’s the important thing. 

Over many years of living alone, I’ve worked out what I like and what I don’t like. The trick is keeping the things I want in a list that also aligns with keeping in good health.

Garlic Udon noodles, coconut cream, pork belly, prawns, and choy sum

The trick mentioned above is not a unique problem. I know other people struggle with it. It’s one of the advantages of the Internet and various cooking forums that we can get ideas from people from all over the world.

I’m not sure cooking with coconut cream is necessarily healthful though. It’s certainly delicious. 

I did buy some spaghetti instead of Udon noodles this week so that I can transition from Asian pasta to Italian pasta. 😉

Spaghetti