Pumpkin Kidney Beans and Quinoa Salad ( Vegan Lunch Diaries )

In the gastronomic world dominated by upstarts and gorgeous vegetables like the zucchini, purple corn and red cabbage, the humble pumpkin hardly finds any takers. But if you have been following my blog for sometime now, my fascination with the rather out of shape member of the squash family won't come as a shocker to you. I love the vegetable to an extent that one would always find some stocked in my fridge. While it is a rather common ingredient in most of the curries/dal in Odisha, I love to cook the vegetable just by itself. A simple pumpkin fry would do on most days, the spicy Sri Lankan Pumpkin curry is a must-have when I am in a mood to indulge myself.

With kiddo following in my footsteps, our family's love for this vegetable is now widely recognized. Just to ensure that he does not get teased about it, I now have a mission to give this down-market vegetable a sexy new makeover. And this vegan salad recipe, a complete meal in itself, is the first thing that came to my mind. Filling to the core and bursting with fiber, this is something that one must give a try.

Read on for the recipe -

Preparation Time - 20 mins


Ingredients -

• 1/2 cup quinoa
• 1/2 cup boiled kidney beans ( or use canned ones )
• 1 cup pumpkin slices
• 1 small onion
• 1 tsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 tsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp sugar
• 1/4 tsp chili flakes or crushed pepper
• salt to taste
• a sprig of cilantro

Preparation - Take the vinegar, olive oil, sugar, chili flakes/pepper and salt in a bowl to prepare the dressing.

Chop the onion into thin slices and add to the dressing. Keep aside for 20 mins.

Cooking - Wash and cook the quinoa with 1 cup water and a tiny pinch of salt in a saucepan. Once the water is absorbed, fluff it up .

Sprinkle a few drops of oil on an iron skillet. Once it starts to smoke, throw in the pumpkin slices . Sprinkle a tiny amount of salt and cook them on high till brown spots begin to appear. Flip them over and cook on the other side as well. Once they are done ( not mushy ), remove and keep aside.

Add the boiled kidney beans, the pan-seared pumpkin and the dressing to the quinoa. Toss gently.

Garnish with a sprig of cilantro. Serve at room temperature.

Sri Lankan Pumpkin Curry (Wattaka Kalu Pol)

Pumpkin Curry ??? No ways. Going by the way most people feel about this humble vegetable, I had actually put off posting the recipe. But leafing though my diary to sort out/refresh some of the low oil dishes that I have cooked over the years, I stumbled upon this gem of a recipe. I had first watched this curry being prepared by an old Sri Lankan lady on television but I could not catch all the ingredients that go into the making of this dish. So, when I searched for this recipe on the net, I stumbled upon Dani Venn's blog . She has a great collection of recipes and please do check them when you have the time.

Coming back to the recipe, I decided to stay true to the ingredients used (though I skipped the rice and desiccated coconut paste) but made some minor change in the order in which they go into the dish. Call it 'cultural conditioning' or whatever you like, but I could not understand the logic behind adding the tempering ingredients after frying the onion, ginger and garlic :). The curry turned out to be delicious (and amazingly aromatic) despite using so less oil.

Read on for the recipe -

Preparation Time - 25 mins

Ingredients -

For curry powder -

• 2 tbsp coriander seeds
• 1 tsp fennel seeds
• 1 tbsp cumin seeds
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 3 cardamon pods
• 2-3 dry red chilis
• Sprig of curry leaves
• 1 1/2 inch long cinnamon stick
• 1 teaspoon rice
• 1 tsp turmeric powder

Others -

• 1 tsp rice bran oil
• 1 medium sized onion(finely chopped)
• 3 garlic flakes (finely chopped)
• 1 tsp ginger (finely chopped)
• 1 red chili (broken into small pieces)
• 1 tsp mustard powder
• 1 tsp mustard seeds
• 2 tsp fenugreek seed
• 1 tsp coriander powder
• 1 tsp cumin powder
• 2 sprig curry leaves
• 2 pandan leaves, roughly torn into pieces
• 500g pumpkin (peeled & diced into 1 1/2 inch cubes)
• 2 cups thick coconut milk

Preparation - Heat a frying pan. Add the rice to it and roast for 2-3 mins. Then add all other spices (except for turmeric) mentioned under 'For curry powder' and roast till they give off their fragrance.

Remove from flame and allow to cool down. Grind into a fine powder and mix turmeric with it. Since this is more than what you need for the curry, keep the rest of it in an air-tight bottle in the fridge.

Cooking - Heat the oil in a wok. Add the broken red chili, mustard and fenugreek seeds to it. Once they start popping, add the onions. Fry till translucent.

Add the chopped ginger and garlic. Fry for 2 mins before adding all the powdered spices.

Fry for a minute and then add the curry leaves, pandan leaves and pumpkin cubes.

Add the coconut milk to the wok and let it simmer on a low flame.

Once the pumpkin is cooked, add 2 levelled teaspoons of the curry powder and mix it well. (Add more curry powder if you like it spicy).

Remove from the flame and serve hot with white rice and yogurt.