Pumpkin, Chickpea and Spinach Satay

It's funny how sometimes you find a recipe and BAM that night you've already made it, and soon after that you've blogged it. And yet other times you find a recipe you Really, Really want to make. Maybe you even buy a whole cookbook on the basis of one recipe. And years or decades later you still haven't tried that recipe. Or you've cooked other recipes again and again and never blogged them.

Today's recipe is a BAM. I came across this blog post on a lazy Sunday morning recently, and I made it that very evening. I only need three work lunches that week, and this made a big, big pot of satay.

Of course I fiddled with the recipe a bit. I had a large capsicum lurking in the vegie crisper that I wanted to use up, so I added that. I added a carrot for good measure- I'm not particularly good at eating carrots otherwise, but am more than happy to whilst hidden in a satay.

generous drizzle of soy sauce
1 onion, diced
1 large red capsicum, diced (or whatever you have lurking in the vegie crisper)4 medium size garlic cloves, crushed
3 tsp of grated fresh ginger
1.5kg butternut pumpkin, peeled and chopped into 2-3cm cubes
1 carrot, peeled and diced375mL can of light and creamy coconut flavored evaporated milk
1/2 cup vegetable stock
1/2  cauliflower
1 medium floret broccoli
1 pkt of firm tofu
1/2 cup of crunchy or smooth peanut butter
1  tbs soy sauce
2 tsp brown sugar
400g can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
150g  baby spinach leaves
Optional: + 1/4 cup chopped coriander + 1 long red chilli, seeds removed, finely chopped

Heat a generous drizzle of soy sauce in a large sauce pan and cook the onion for 4-5 minutes until soft. Add the capsicum, garlic, ginger (and optional chilli) and cook for 1 minute, stirring to combine. Add pumpkin and carrot cubes and stir to combine. Pour in coconut flavored milk and stock, bring to the boil. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until pumpkin is just cooked. Add the cauliflower and broccoli, cover and cook for 3 minutes. Then stir in the tofu and cover; continue to simmer for 3 minutes. Ensure the cauliflower and broccoli are tender (and the tofu is now less firm to touch) before adding the peanut butter, soy sauce, sugar and chickpeas; stir to combine and heat through. Stir in the spinach (and optional coriander) until all combined. 


Notes
My pumpkin all but dissolved. Not a bad thing, it just was. I cut it into bite sized pieces as I much prefer that to larger chunks, but I wasn't quite anticipating the complete disappearance of form. Still yummy.

I was rather apprehensive about frying the onion in soy sauce instead of oil, worrying that all I would taste would be soy. It wasn't. I'm not sure what difference it makes really. I have no problems with a small amount of oil to fry onion in a dish like this- I reckon there are worse things you can eat, but I was interested to try this method. It would be higher in salt as a compensation for lower in fat I suspect.

I used crunchy peanut butter as that was all we had in the cupboard on the day. My son likes crunchy to eat, I will usually only eat smooth as a spread.

I think I might have forgotten the sugar.

I absolutely love coriander so heaps of that went in, and I put a chilli in, but it was very mild one I think and I couldn't detect any heat.

I served it over quinoa (the ingredient of 2010?). It was delicious and would be easily adaptable for including many other vegies too.

This recipe made a vast quantity, and because I made it in the week leading up to Christmas and we were going away I eventually wasted about half of it, as I didn't think it would freeze well because of the milk. I only managed to eat half of it despite having it for lunch and dinner on two days, feeding it to Mr Adventures once and then lunch for me on another day. I would make a half quantity if I were to make it again. But then would have half a can of milk left over, and would have to find a use for that.