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With Halloween fast creeping up on us, many people will be buying pumpkins and carving them out to create impressive doorstep decorations.
Rather than throwing the golden squash away, we have put together some easy to make, great tasting recipes that will help make your celebrations go even better.
Pumpkin Hummus
Hummus comes in many wonderful varieties and we love the creamy consistency of it when you make it with pumpkins.
You will need:
Around 500g of pumpkin flesh
A little olive oil
Garlic (we would say two cloves)
The juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons of tahini paste
A 400g can of chickpeas, washed and drained
1 orange and one yellow pepper, deseeded and sliced thinly
Pitta bread and carrot sticks to serve
Firstly, heat your oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. Scoop out the pumpkin and cut the flesh into cubes, discarding the seeds, drizzle with oil and cook for around 45 minutes, with the garlic.
Once cool, add the pumpkin and garlic into a blender together with the chickpeas, lemon juice and tahini paste and chickpeas. Add a little salt then blend until smooth and serve.
Pumpkin Soup
As well as being perfect for Halloween, this is a great winter warmer for fireworks night too.
The ingredients needed for one batch are:
1 tablespoon of olive oil
1 medium red onion (finely chopped)
500g of pumpkin flesh
1 vegetable stock cube and water for dissolving
100ml of crème fraise
Salt and pepper to season
Put the onions in a large saucepan and gently cook for around 5 minutes, until soft. Then add the pumpkin flesh and continue to cook for ten minutes, stirring now and again. Make up the stock and add to the pan, using salt and pepper to season as required. Bring the mixture to the boil and then simmer until the pumpkin is very soft and golden. At this point add the crème fraiche then bring back to the boil. If you want super smooth soup, use a blender, then serve with warm crusty bread and enjoy.
Pumpkin Cupcakes
Everyone loves cupcakes and these seasonal beauties taste so fantastic you’ll want to eat them all year round.
For 12 cakes, you will need:
225g of self-raising flour
1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon and the same of ginger
2 large eggs
150ml of vegetable oil
225g of caster sugar
150g of pumpkin, grated
½ a teaspoon of vanilla essence
For icing you will need:
50g of soft butter
200g of cream cheese
50g if icing sugar
½ teaspoon of vanilla extract
Pinch of ground cinnamon
Preheat your oven to 200°C/fan180°C/gas 6 and line your cake tin with paper cases – Halloween patterned ones if you can find them. Put the flour, bicarbonate of soda, ginger and cinnamon into a bowl. Pour in the oil, sugar and eggs into another bowl and beat until blended. Mix the wet ingredients with the dry, then add the pumpkin and stir together.
Spoon this mix into the paper cases and bake for 15 minutes, until well risen and firm but do not burn, then leave to cool.
Make the icing but mixing the butter and cream cheese until soft then stir in the icing sugar, vanilla and spices until totally smooth. Spread over the tops of the cooled cakes and if you can find some spooky sweets, add them to the top.
Whatever you do this Halloween, be safe and have fun.
Team Pure Beauty
Good Living from Pure Beauty Online 