Recipe: Pumpkin Orzo

Crown Prince squash from Belhaven Community Garden, prepped for its big moment

Our first official activity organised as part of the new Local Good Food Alliance was a fire cooking session at Belhaven Community Garden on Friday. We could not have been luckier with the weather!

We came together as two families with a three-year-old and two five-year-olds to explore, pick, taste, smell and cook.

The children toured the garden and chose apples to take home. They pulled a leek, helped chop a crown prince pumpkin and picked and stripped thyme leaves for this pumpkin orzo.

They picked rosemary to go into cheesy bannocks, and mixed up spiced fire cakes, before exploring the polytunnel and trying some tomatoes and grapes.

The LGFA is a newly established organisation under the umbrella of the Dunbar & East Linton Area Partnership, championed by Sustaining Dunbar. Around 20 projects and organisations are currently talking about how to work more closely together; what the local food needs, wants and hopes are; and how to best make these happen. Watch this space for more activity!

Serves 4

Ingredients

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
500g pumpkin, peeled and diced
250g orzo
1 tablespoon flour
200ml whole milk
100g cheddar, grated
40g parmesan, finely grated
1 tablespoon chicken or vegetable bouillon or 1 cube
Black pepper
3 sprigs thyme, leaves picked
4 sage leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons olive oil to fry in

Method

1.      In a large, lidded saucepan, fry the onion in oil until softened. Add the garlic for one minute, then the pumpkin for another minute.

2.      Tip in the flour and stir to coat everything. Add the milk and enough water to just cover the pumpkin. Cook for five minutes or so, until the pumpkin is starting to soften.

3.      Add the orzo, thyme, black pepper and stock powder. Cover with water, pop the lid on and cook until the orzo and the pumpkin are done.

4.      Stir through the cheddar and sage, spoon into bowls and top with parmesan.