Dinner recipe: Stuffed Pumpkin

Since I don't eat a lot of red meat I need to find another source to make sure I get enough iron in my system! Iron is an important mineral for our body since it's part of hemoglobin of our red blood cells. Hemoglobin ensures that oxygen is transported to every part of the body through our blood. In addition, iron is also a key aspect in developing antibodies. Antibodies are an essential part of our immune system since they help fight illness and other harmful substances that enter our bodies. Pumpkins are rich in iron, but also contain high levels of other vitamins and minerals like Vitamin C, B, A and magnesium. This recipe is a perfect way to eat pumpkin and is from Amber Albarda's cooking book (only available in Dutch). I made some small changes and suggest you serve it with some quinoa on the side.

The recipe isn't as quick and easy as most of my other recipes but it was so good that I just had to share and it's perfect for in the weekends!

Duration:  1 hour

The ingredients for 1-2 servings (depending on how big of an eater you are):

• 1 pumpkin (bottle shaped, see picture)
• 1 red onion
• 1 sweet pepper
• 1 garlic clove
• handful pine nuts
• feta cheese
• Olive oil
• 1 tbs chili powder
• Fresh mint leaves

What you do:

1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. 
2. Cut the pumpkin in half and remove the seeds. Cut out the pulp (I used a melon spoon since this is easier than a knife) until about 1 centimeter from the edges. Place the hollowed pumpkin halves on a griddle, sprinkle with salt & pepper, drizzle with 1 tbs olive oil and bake them for 45 minutes in the middle of your oven until soft.
3. Cut the onion and pulp in pieces of the same size. Heat a little bit of olive oil in a pan and bake the onions and cut pumpkin for 10 minutes. Then add the crushed garlic clove and bake for another 5 minutes. Meanwhile you can cook the quinoa as stated on the package. 
4. Scoop the onion-pumpkin mixture into the pumpkin halves, sprinkle over the chili powder and pine nuts and the crumbled feta cheese.
5. Roast the pumpkin halves for another 10 minutes in the oven until the pine nuts are golden brown and the feta cheese has melted a little bit.
6. Put over the fresh mint leaves and your delicious stuffed pumpkin is ready!

Variation tip: Use soft/crumbled goat cheese instead of the feta cheese!