Pumpkin.. not just for Hallow🎃🎃n

No its not just for Halloween or just steaming or as a boring side veg at dinner.

Pumpkin stew!!! currently being cooked as i type...... Simple ingredients Simple cooking Quick and easy... That's how nana cooked.

On the island we all had our ways of cooking this simple but Delicious dish.... (as i said in previous blog) The pumpkins that we used were the big orange ones that is used on Halloween to carve faces in, which ye all have thrown out by now cos lets be honest they stink after a while 😂😁😀 oh the things we do for our children lol .

Note the smell in my kitchen right now is divine i better check on it .......

so what did i put in it.....

pumpkin off course, i used butternut squash (yes it is a member of the pumpkin family) tried to get the orange ones but hey it was just Halloween and they all gone 🙄

sooooo pumpkin, spuds, onion, thyme (very important) bacon (rasher) salt (optional).

peel and dice spuds,

Cut pumpkin ( jamie oliver has a video on it will link it in) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VBVhcCA0dXM

Peel and dice a lil bigger than the spud.

dice onion and rasher.

put a lil oil in saucepan and gently fry the rasher or bacon, add onions after a few minutes, soften the onions and then add in the pumpkin and the spuds. add thyme, now for me this is very important, the flavour of the thyme needs to come through, I remember it being the ingredient that i could taste the most, nana used fresh thyme cos it was grown in the garden, as were the pumpkins and spud and onions lol. something about the sweet taste of the pumpkin and the savoury taste of the thyme and the smokiness of the rashers.

add about a cup of water and salt if you choose too. let steam away on a low heat until cooked.

Memories of this dish are very clear to me..... usually eaten with fried conger (eel) not sure what kind but they were caught fresh out of the Atlantic ocean yuuuummmmy

i remember eating it at the kitchen table, or at the beach when on a camping weekend, surrounded by friends and family all cooking something good. Nothing better than a big bowl of this after swimming all morning. Or our very traditional New years Day drive around the island eating and relaxing at different spots finishing the day at the pair head, Food for me unlocks all those memories of the island and how much food brought people together.... (currently eating and it does not taste like nana's lol )

You can use this as a side dish or a main. Just enjoy, 😁😉😊😋😋

My last New Years Day drive around