meal in a pumpkin
What to serve a vegan when you invite him along for a family roast dinner, having warm and kindly intentions, but feeling uninspired.
First, drift mindlessly around the supermarket for a while. Allow it to dawn on you that spiralling in on the fruit-and-veg section might be a more profitable use of your time than marching up and down the small-goods aisle. Wander there for a time, allowing your eyes to glance over the produce. Spot a rack full of pumpkin wedges! Notice that there are a couple of smaller, uncut pumpkins amidst the chunks. Purchase a pretty one and take it home.
As you draw the boning knife from the knife block, briefly ponder your ethical position on the use of such an implement for the preparation of a vegan meal. Shrug. Carve (with the boning knife, because its flexibility suits it to the purpose) a volcano crater out of the top of the pumpkin, keeping the plug. Scoop out the seeds. Put the pumpkin into a deep baking tray.
Slowly ease yourself into a maternal frame of mind. Consider the nutritional requirements of an active young man. Fossick (love that word!) around in the pantry, fridge and freezer for available sources of vegetable protein.
Gauge the volume of the pumpkin hollow, and measure out about 1/12th of that in brown rice (about a tablespoon?). Fill and boil the kettle. Cook the rice for about 15 minutes in the microwave with about half a cup of water (add more water during cooking if it dries out). Put about a quarter of the pumpkin hollow volume of burghul into a bowl, and pour hot water over to cover. Let it stand and swell while the rice cooks. Peel a handful of frozen broad beans. Chop a small block of firm tofu into 1/4 inch cubes. Finely chop two or three spring onions. Mix the rice, burghul, beans, tofu and onions together and stuff the pumpkin with the mixture.
Stare at it for a while. Looks pretty boring, doesn't it?
Remind usagi not to cook the roast veggies in the same tray as the meat.
Recall that Harry eats curries, and try to imagine a pumpkin curry. Mull over the peas and paneer idea that comes to mind - the beans will stand in for the peas, and the tofu for the paneer quite nicely. Shave about half-an-inch of coconut cream off a block. Dissolve it in half-a-cup of hot water. Stir in a tablespoon of curry powder. Think that you could do a lot better than this if you had good curry spices to hand, but some days you just have to make-do. Rethink that strategy. Imagine a warm-not-hot, slightly bitter, quite sweet, creamy flavour. Add a desertspoon of brown sugar. Add a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Add half-a-teaspoon of groud cummin seed. Pour this all into the pumpkin. Top up with more hot water. Put the "lid" back on.
Bake for an hour (more or less, depending how big the prettiest pumpkin was), until a bamboo skewer slides through with ease.
The carnivores were happy to eat this, too.