Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices

Cumin has to be one of my favourite spices. I love its wonderful flavour that goes with so many things. 

A quick keyword search through my Evernote trove of recipes came up with 68 that include cumin. From carrot fritters to marinated olives, from white bean soup to a spiced chickpea and potato fry-up, it’s found its way into recipes featuring a diverse range of ingredients including mushrooms, avocado, spinach, eggplant and lentils.

Here are just a few of my quick fave ways to use cumin seeds.

Slice up some steamed or roasted butternut pumpkin (butternut squash). Toss some cumin seeds in oil in a fry pan, then throw in the sliced butternut and cook over a medium-high heat until it gets crunchy bit. This is great with leftover steamed or roast potato too – or a mixture of both.

Fry some cumin seeds with onions in oil. Toss in some chopped carrots, a potato and cover with vegetable stock. Simmer until vegies are soft then blitz with a stick-blender. Serve the soup with a spoonful of natural yoghurt.

Or for really special cheese on toast, toast ½ teaspoon of cumin seeds in a dry frypan over a medium heat until it smells gorgeous (chefs and cookbook writers seem to say until it’s ‘fragrant’). Grind the seeds until fine then add to 50 g of grated Emmental cheese. Pile onto toast and whack it under the grill until the cheese melts and goes bubbly. If you want to you could use this on top of soup too. Delish!

Loving the Leftovers

Do your leftovers pine away at the back of the fridge, forgotten and unloved, and then get thrown out? Finding new things to do with leftovers not only helps reduce your food bills because you’re not wasting so much, but it’s kinder to the planet. Not to mention that it can be great fun to experiment.

I love roast vegetables. A plate piled high with roasted potatoes, pumpkin, carrots and beetroots is truly delicious. Add some greens – beans, peas, broccoli, broccolini – for a veritable feast.

Thing is, when I roast veggies somehow I always seem to cook too much. Especially with the pumpkin.

Not wanting to waste it, I’ve been messing about and have discovered delicious ways to use any leftover roasted pumpkin. These taste so good that now I deliberately cook too much. I have been using what in Australia is called “butternut pumpkin”. In other places it’s referred to as “butternut squash”. But I figure these recipes should work pretty well with any kind of pumpkin. Sorry I can’t give you accurate quantities. Part of the fun of leftovers is experimenting … if you get really stuck, drop me a line and I’ll help you out.

Roasted Pumpkin Soup

Fry up diced onion and finely chopped garlic in olive oil. Throw in a teaspoon of cumin seeds and cook until onion is soft and cumin smells lovely. Toss in the roasted pumpkin and some vegetable stock and bring to the boil. Simmer for a couple of minutes. Blitz with a stick blender. Check seasoning and serve with a swirl of natural yoghurt.

(For this recipe I used about 5 pieces of roasted pumpkin with one medium sized onion and 2 cloves of garlic.)

Roast Pumpkin Sauce for Pasta

Years ago I ate pumpkin filled ravioli with pumpkin sauce at a restaurant in Venice. Rather too much pumpkin was my thought at the time, but I did like the idea. So I serve this pumpkin sauce with spinach and ricotta filled ravioli.

Mash pumpkin. Add enough white wine to make a fairly thick sauce. If you think the mix needs too much wine, or if you prefer not to use wine, use vegetable stock or a combination of both. Warm through and season with salt and pepper.

I like the sauce to be quite thick and put it in the bottom of a large bowl. Then arrange pasta on top. When I want a meal to be extra special, and feel that I can survive the additional calories, I serve it with a sage and butter sauce, and grated Parmesan. If you’re not using the sage butter, why not add some chopped sage to the pumpkin mix? The flavours go together wonderfully.

Sage and Butter Sauce

Melt butter in fry pan with sage leaves. When butter starts to turn brown remove from heat and quickly add lemon juice. Make sure your butter doesn't burn.