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Butternut pumpkin with chickpea stuffing and goat’s cheese

I just love butternut pumpkin, especially when it’s been roasted and stuffed with all sorts of goodies.
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Servings 6

Ingredients
  

  • 3 small butternut pumpkins cut in half lengthwise
  • 3 tablespoons olive oil plus extra to serve
  • sea salt
  • 2 cloves garlic finely sliced
  • 1 red onion diced
  • 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  • ½ teaspoon smoked paprika
  • 400 g tin chickpeas rinsed and drained
  • 1 courgette diced
  • 1 red capsicum diced
  • 30 g baby spinach or kale leaves
  • 100 g goat’s cheese
  • ½ teaspoon ground sumac
  • micro greens to garnish

Instructions
 

  • Preheat the oven to 170°C.
  • Scoop the seeds from pumpkin halves. Use 1 Tbsp of the oil and a sprinkle of sea salt to rub all over cut side of pumpkin halves. Place in a single layer in a shallow roasting dish and roast for 30 minutes or until pumpkin flesh is just tender when pierced with a knife. Leave oven on.
  • Heat the remaining oil and sauté the garlic, onion, cumin seeds and paprika until soft and fragrant.
  • Add chickpeas, courgette and capsicum and cook for 2 minutes until starting to colour. Add leaves, remove from the heat and stir until leaves have just wilted then crumble in half the goat’s cheese.
  • Fill pumpkin shells with the chickpea stuffing and top with remaining goat’s cheese, sliced into rounds. Sprinkle with a pinch of sumac then bake for a further 20 minutes until golden.
  • Serve the pumpkin with a drizzle of olive oil, seasoning and a few micro greens scattered on top.

Notes

In this recipe, the sweet, nutty flavour of pumpkin pairs perfectly with a divine garlicky chickpea stuffing. Goat’s cheese adds a creamy, velvety element that’s made that little bit more delicious by being grilled until wonderfully gooey. Feel free to swap it out for feta if you can’t get your hands on any, it works just as well.
This recipe is perfect for a weeknight vegetarian dinner. Serve it with a side salad such as Fennel, Grape, Tomato and Orange Salad or Marinated Kale Salad with Tomato and Pomegranate. Otherwise, a simple green salad would do perfectly!
To make this meal vegan, swap the goat’s cheese out for a dollop of guacamole or cashew cheese. The tomato cashew cheese from this recipe would also be delicious!