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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Roasted Pumpkin Salad (and spaghetti, and lasagna...)

Pin It I have been quite busy lately and as a result I have been unable to post as much as I wanted, or to participate and browse at other blogs (and there are so many great blogs out there!).
But it is not all bad news, there is actually a very good reason for my recent lack of posts (and time). I am planning a trip to Brazil, in fact we are living in 4 days!
I normally see may family and friends once a year (yes, I am lucky, I know), but Andrew has actually never been to Brazil. We both travelled a lot together and been to many interesting places, but never made it to my home place. It's very exciting, and somewhat nerve wrecking too...

But before we take off, I really wanted to participate of this month's Weekend Wokking Event, hosted this time by Heart and Hearth and the ingredient of the month couldn't be more appropriate: Pumpkin! Yum!


I decided to roast my pumpkin not only because it concentrates the flavours, but I can use the roasted pumpkin in a variety of dishes. For this post I pictured a simple salad made with the pumpkin pieces when they first came out of the oven. I often enjoy some warm element in my salads, slightly wilting the greens.
Roasting the pumpkin is fairly easy, once you pass the peel, seed and cut stages.
I mix the pieces of pumpkin with olive oil (bout 1 tbsp for each pound of pumpkin), one red onion, quartered and some fresh herbs ( sometimes it's sage, others rosemary, oregano) salt and pepper. I roast it at 450 degrees for 30 minutes. After that I keep checking every 5 minutes until it's just right, which for me it's still firm, but with some browned spots around the edges.
For the salad, I made a bed of arugula dressed with some olive oil and lemon juice, some shaved Parmesan and a few nuts.
I mixed the leftover roasted pumpkin with ricotta cheese in a food processor and used it in two pasta dishes:
1) a spaghetti with the creamy ricotta-pumpkin sauce
2) a pumpkin lasagna using the ricotta-pumpkin mixture, bechamel and mozzarella cheese.
I hope I will still see pumpkins at the markets by the time I come back to Seattle because I just love pumpkin. I hope you do too.

6 comments:

LizNoVeggieGirl said...

No worries!! Glad you're able to blog again :0)

That dish looks PHENOMENAL!!

Anonymous said...

this salad looks great with the roasted pumpkin! yum!

Wandering Chopsticks said...

I've been checking to see when you'd get your pumpkin post up. The salad looks great! I love roasted pumpkin too.

Have a safe trip and lots of fun in Brazil! I hope you post about it afterward for us to read.

Let me know if you'd like to host WW. So far, March through May is free. :)

Anonymous said...

This salad looks delicious and healthy! Thanks for sharing this with Weekend Wokking! And have a happy and safe trip! :)

test it comm said...

Roasted pumpkin goes well in salads. Brazil sounds like a lot of fun.

Rita said...

Thanks Veggiegirl and Tasty Trends

WC - I could not miss the WW event! Thank you for the compliments, I will definetely think about your offer when I get back.

Ning - Thank you, and congratulations for a nice round up!

Kevin - I like adding roasted pumpkin to salads also because it makes them a substantial meal.

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