One pumpkin down (with rice stuffing recipe)

Frankly I’m a little embarrassed.

I totally and utterly fucked up my first butternut pumpkin dish.

I decided to do roasted and stuffed pumpkin – thanks Renee! – because I thought I was a good way to showcase the pumpkin, which was after all the star of the dish. (Sorry I’ve been watching waaaay too much Masterchef).

I was really pleased with the rice, mushroom and leek stuffing, but totally failed to cook the pumpkin all the way through. So Reece and I ended up eating gorgeous rice stuffing with a tiny bit of cooked pumpkin and mostly raw pumpkin pushed to the sides of our plates.

It all started so well…

Isn't it cute and all hollowed out!

And it even looked fantastic coming out of the oven with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese…

Looking deceptively delicious and cooked

Never mind. At least it wasn’t undercooked chicken…then George and Gary would have been really mad at me.

So it’s one pumpkin down and two to go.

Here’s the recipe for the rice stuffing I used, which was thankfully very filling all on its own.

Rice, mushroom and leek stuffing

• 1 cup of rice (I used basmati)
• 1 leek (just the white bit), thinly sliced
• 2 medium sized field mushrooms (or enough to fill 2 cups), chopped roughly into chunks
• 2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
• 20 sage leaves, finely chopped
• 1 tbs thyme leaves
• 1/2 cup flaked almonds
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 60g butter

Cook the rice until just al dente and leave to cool.

Saute the leek and garlic with a little olive oil in a medium sized pan until the leek is soft and slightly see through. Add the butter and the chopped sage, mix well and leave until the sage gets slightly crispy from the melted butter. Add the mushrooms and thyme leaves and cook for 2 mins. Stir through flaked almonds and raisins and leave another 1 min.

Add cooked and drained rice and stir to combine. If the mixture seems a little dry feel free to add another little knob of butter or a splash of olive oil.

This stuffing worked great with the undercooked pumpkin or it could be used to stuff a chicken. If you have any excess after stuffing your vegetable or animal of choice, wrap the leftover in aluminium foil and stick in the over for the last 30 mins of cooking time.

Enjoy!