Top four pumpkin recipes

We all like to carve pumpkins with our kids, but how many of us use the flesh and seeds too?
Here are the top four pumpkin recipes for all your family to enjoy, our boys particularly loved the pizza!

1. Pumpkin and Swiss chard risotto
Roast the pumpkin at 200C for 40 minutes after tossing it with olive oil, sea salt and cracked pepper. Soften the onion and garlic with oil
over a low heat. Add rice and stir. Add stock and stir until absorbed, repeat until rice is cooked. Stir in pumpkin and Parmesan. Serve with extra Parmesan - enjoy!

2. Roast pumpkin and rocket salad, with macadamia nuts and a balsamic glaze
Roast the pumpkin as before. Toss the salad leaves in lemon juice and olive oil, and season lightly. Stir the roast pumpkin through, scatter light roasted macadamia nuts over. Drizzle with balsamic vinegar.

3. Roast pumpkin and chorizo pitta pizza
The kids will love them!
Heat the oven to 200C and put a baking tray inside to heat up. Spread each pitta with tomato purée, fresh tomatoes, chorizo and diced pumpkin. The possibilities are endless here - add whatever you like! We topped ours with mozzarella,but you can use any cheese. Bake for 10 minutes, scatter with basil, and serve.

4. Chill and lime pumpkin seeds.
Our household favourite, these go down a treat at pretty much every occasion, I guarantee that you will have none left!
Seperate the seeds from the flesh and pat dry with kitchen towel.
Mix with oil, paprika, chilli powder, cayenne and salt, the proportions are up to you! Mix the seeds through to coat and roast in very hot oven for about 10 minutes, stirring midway through. Tip into a bowl and squeeze over fresh lime juice. Mix and get stuck in!

Moules Marinieres

The summer's gone, time to face the facts. However as one door closes another opens as some of the best food is now available as the night's get longer. Root vegetables ideal for warming winter stews are now being pulled from the ground and game season has started. Also they say (I'm not too sure who these 'they' people are but they seem to know a lot) never buy/eat mussels unless the month has an 'r' in it's spelling. Mussels like cold water and grow nice and big as the winter draws in. As we are in our second month with an 'r' in it's spelling I felt it was time to share my Moules marinieres recipe. If  you're lucky enough to live on the coast and get to pick your own make sure you do it away from any built up areas, mussels are the sea's filters so you wouldn't want to eat anything nasty. This recipes originates from Belgium, the original recipe does not have cream in it but I like a splash to make the sauce nice and thick. When buying mussels if you can get them already cleaned then great. If not then make sure you pull the little 'beards' of each one and make sure you take off any barnacles etc. from their shells. Discard any that don't close when you give them a tap with the back of a knife, they will be dead. Before cooking give them a nice purge in some fresh water, when the water running off them is clear then they are ready for the pot.

Moules Marinieres

Ingredients (serves 2)

3 kg mussels
1 glass of good quality white wine (if you wouldn't drink it then don't cook with it!)
3 garlic cloves crushed
1/2 an onion finely diced 
1/2 pint double cream
1 tsp butter
1 spring onion sliced for a garnish
Lemon wedge
Splash of olive oil

Method
Get a sauce pan hot, add the olive oil and then the onions. Fry for a minute then add the garlic, fry for another minute then add the mussels and give them a good stir. Next add the white wine (careful of the steam!) give it all a good stir and put a lid on the sauce pan. Let it all cook for about 2 minutes shaking the pan (with your hand on the lid!) every now and then. After 2 minutes has passed with your hand on the lid make a small crack between the pan and lid and pour out the cooking liquid leaving a little bit behind. Then pour in the double cream and the butter and bring back to the boil. When the cream comes to the boil it's ready, garnish with the chopped spring onion and serve! Discard any that haven't opened and enjoy!