Pumpkin Curry with Red Lentils

A few other vegans from a group on Goodreads, Vegan_Cooking_Cookbooks & I have come up with the idea to have a little cooking challenge, all of us using one main ingredient, for which the pumpkin was chosen.

I will add the links to the other members' blogs later on as well, so you can see more pumpkin dishes! ;-) 

I've never cooked savory foods with pumpkin, so I was intrigued to come up with a dish!

After spending a while online and surfing through a couple of recipes, I found one that looked just perfect!  ;-) I absolutely love my other Chickpea Curry, so the idea of making a curry with pumpkin sounded perfect! 

I don't know what this pumpkin is called exactly, but after my kids were so disgusted by its look with all the 'pimples', it's now called a "Pimply Pumpkin" in our household *lol*

Pumpkin Curry with Red Lentils

Ingredients:

*1 small pumpkin 

*3-4 carrots, diced

*1 onion, diced

*~1 tsp of minced garlic or 1 clove of fresh garlic

*1 Tbsp EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)

*1 c red lentils

*~3-5 c vegetable broth (or water)

*1 can of (lite) Coconut milk

*1 Tbsp curry powder

*Salt, pepper, celery salt to taste

Directions:

Step 1) Rub pumpkin with olive oil and some kosher salt and put in the oven at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for ~20 mins or until an inserted knife comes out easily

Step 2) While the pumpkin is in the oven, dice the onion and add to a heated pan [I used my pressure cooker] with the EVOO until they look glassy (~5 min). Add the garlic and let it cook for another minute.

Step 3) Add the diced carrot together with the curry powder to the onion-garlic mix, maybe a splash of water, and mix around. Let the mix cook for another minute or so.

Step 4) Add the red lentils and broth (you might need more then 3 cups possibly), close the lid of your pan [or in my case pressure cooker] and let everything cook until lentils and the carrots are done. [For the pressure cooker it only takes a few minutes, ~5]

Step 5) Once everything is cooked, add the coconut milk (I scoop the top part off and use it in order to get the thick part), taste and voila! :)

Serve with Couscous or Basmati rice (I prefer the latter but we didn't have any anymore so I used couscous).

Guten Appetit! =)