I love this time of year for all the lovely autumnal vegetables which are in season and often quite cheap to buy in the supermarket. Pumpkins are a particular favourite of mine and it’s amazing just how many dishes you can make out of your Halloween pumpkin – so rather than just carving it and then throwing it away, make use of it to make some new recipes and one pumpkin can go a very long way!
The only inedible part of a pumpkin is the stalk – throw that away but everything else can absolutely be eaten:
- clean and roast the seeds for a delicious snack or addition to a salad or topping for a soup (just exert portion control as seeds are very good for us and very healthy but they are also quite high in fat so limit your intake to a tbsp a day to protect your weight losses)
- the skin can absolutely be eaten too – some pumpkins have quite a thick and tough skin, I use this in a soup but if the skin is just a thin layer, then I’ll eat that as part of the fleshy part and save myself the trouble of peeling it.
- even the innards (the stringy bits) are fine – just put them in a soup and blitz it up when cooked or use your soup maker on the smooth setting
- and of course the fleshy part – this is so versatile and can be the basis of so many dishes both sweet and savoury.
Ingredients for the tart
To make 1 tart
- 1 sheet of filo pastry (I use Theos which I buy in Tesco)
- 125g of roast pumpkin flesh (see above link for pumpkin puree)
- 50g of feta cheese
- 1 egg
- seasoning of your choice – I used 1/2 tsp of dried sage
- low cal spray oil
Method
Preheat your oven to 180 / Gas mark 4
Crack the egg into a bowl and beat it
Add the mashed roasted pumpkin puree
Add your seasoning
Give it a really good stir
Add the chopped feta cheese
Again, give it a really good stir
Take one sheet of filo pastry
Cut it into quarters
Take a small pastry dish or large ramekin and place one quarter of the filo pastry in. Overlapping the edges is absolutely fine. Spray a couple of squirts of low cal spray oil onto the pastry
Repeat the process with all 4 quarters of the pastry sheet. (Don’t worry if you get a couple of tears in a layer)
Spoon in the pumpkin and feta mix and spread evenly.
Fold up any of the overlapping bits of pastry and place in the preheated oven for 25 mins.
Remove from the oven when the pastry is golden brown and leave to cool for a few minutes and then use a spoon, if you wish, to carefully remove from the dish.
I served mine with a bulgur wheat salad for a very filling lunch.
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