I loathe shopping, including for food. So I am indeed one of those people who get fruit and veg delivered to the door – and meat as well. The meat I pick for myself; the fruit and veg just come in a box, and I’m never sure what is going to turn up. This week: an entire Queensland Blue pumpkin.

Oh the decisions.

Pumpkin soup was obvious… and would have been enormous. So I went looking, and in Moorish
I came across one for a tagine of pumpkin, eggplant and whole green chillies. The sauce simmered away for about an hour – tomato and onion and garlic and a small mountain of caraway, cumin and coriander – while the pumpkin baked and the zucchini and eggplant were lightly fried. The pumpkin I overcooked so it ended up more like a puree by the time I stirred it through the sauce, but it was utterly delicious. The darling was a little disconsolate about eating nothing but vegetables for dinner, but since he also got to eat the last of the flat bread I made the other week (taken out of the freezer and reheated in the pan, just like it was cooked), he wasn’t really complaining.

Of course, that only used about a third of the pumpkin. So I also made soup, with a rather large helping of ginger (from the fruit and veg box). It made quite a lot… . My freezer is now well and truly stocked.

Thank you, punkin. You served well.