Gluten-Free, Low-Sodium, Vegan Pumpkin Risotto

Having just been in Italy for two incredible weeks, we ate a lot of amazing food.
One of my favourite dishes was a strawberry and gorgonzola risotto. It was indescribably delicious.

This dish has inspired me to cook more with rice. I never do. If I make a stir fry, or a curry, I usually don't cook rice at all. I found it dull and stodgy.

But - risotto! Creamy and so flavourful. I don't know why I never made it before!

I wanted to try a risotto with a twist - it usually contains quite a bit of butter and oils and parmesan cheese, so I wanted to try to make it as delicious while cutting the fat and salt content.
From this desire came the below recipe I must say I am pretty proud of!

A gluten-free, low-sodium vegan pumpkin risotto!

                                          * this photo does not do the dish justice

What You'll Need (serves 4):

• About two hours of time
• A deep, covered frying pan
• 1 cup freshly pureed pumpkin (if they are not in season, un-sweetened canned pumpkin will also work great)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 medium-sized onion
• 1 Tbsp of your favourite olive oil
• 1 cup of rice. Now - typically you should use arborio rice. Its shape and texture allows it to soak up liquid quickly while releasing starch so it becomes stickier than normal rice. I didn't have this rice in stock so I used a long grain brown rice and it turned out just fine.
• 1/2 cup of white wine (preferably something that goes nice with a risotto;)
• 2 cups low-sodium vegetable broth
• 1 Tbsp freshly diced basil
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp freshly minced ginger
• 1 Tsp of 5-Spice Powder (mine contains; aniseed, fennel, peppercorn, cinnamon and ginger)
• 1 Tbsp low-sodium margarine (if you do not require this to be vegan, replace with un-salted butter)
• Twists of freshly ground pepper to taste

What You'll Do: 

Step One - A lesson in pumpkin selection
Select a pumpkin that is good for baking with. As this is Halloween and jac-o-lantern season, you will see giant pumpkins all around - do not get one of those. Their flesh will be watery and stringy. Look for a smaller, smooth pumpkin often called 'sugar pumpkin' or 'pie pumpkin'. These pumpkins are great for baking, making soups, stews, and for our needs today. Because they are smaller, they usually yield about two cups of puree, maybe a bit more once baked.

Step Two - Baking your pumpkin

• Pre-heat your oven to 350 (175)
• Set up your blender
• With a large, sturdy knife, cut your pumpkin into halves or quarters, depending on how you are able to make the slices. Be careful here as pumpkins are smooth and slippery (like Martha) and no one wants a real life gory hand this Halloween
• Line a baking tray with tinfoil
• Place your cut pumpkin slices, flesh up on the tray
• Cover with tinfoil
• Bake for 45 minute to 1 hour. Check in at 30 minutes to see how they are doing. If you chose to cut the pumpkin into quarters, flip your slices around, so their other side is now facing up and cover again with foil
• They are done when you can easily slide a fork in and they look all soft and nearly mushy
• Let cool
• Using a spoon with some edge, scrape the flesh out of the peels and plop into your blender
• Add in the 1/4 cup of water and pulse until you have a nice, smooth puree
• Set aside to cool - do not refrigerate

Step Three - Cooking the rice. This takes time. Budget 1.5 hours.

• Dice your onion - this is how I like to dice mine - and toss into your deep frying pan
• Add in your favourite olive oil
• Sautee the onions until slightly brown and very soft - about 5-7 minutes if you are on a steady low heat
• Add in your rice
• Stir and cook for about five minutes
• Add in the 1/2 cup of white wine
• Stir and cook until all the liquid has cooked in
• Add in 1/2 cup of your 2 cups of low-sodium vegetable broth at a time. Each time stirring and cooking down until all the liquid has nearly gone
• Once all of your broth has been added, add in your 1 cup of pumpkin puree
• Stir constantly and add in all of your spices, margarine/butter and basil
• Turn the heat down to the lowest setting, cover and let gently steam for 10 minutes
• Check the rice - if it is still a little too hard, add a splash of water, cover and let steam again for periods of five minutes
• Depending on the grain of rice used, this may need to be done a few times. You want the rice to be soft, but not mushy
• Once the dish has reached your desired consistency, turn the heat off and let stand, covered for another five minutes
• Serve and accept the compliments graciously, as Martha would

This is not a quick dish.
To make it faster you can most definitely use canned pumpkin puree (we don't have that in the Netherlands, so I am forced to be old school about it). But the beauty of this dish is that it is not made in 15 minutes. It takes time, effort, love and patience.

I think this dish would be great for Thanksgiving or Christmas holidays as a nice alternative to mashed potatoes. It is so flavourful and would go great with turkey or chicken dishes.

The STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1.5
Taste: 2
Ease: 0 (though not necessarily difficult, this dish does take time, so I would not say it is easy)

My Favourite Dukan Friendly Marinade

You eat a lot of meat on the Dukan diet. For someone who is neither here nor there about meat and can easily go without it, eating it all the time has been a bit of a challenge.
To spice things up, literally, here is a wonderful meat marinade you can use on chicken, lean beef, turkey breast, or on your vegetables in a stir fry.

What You'll Need:

• 3 Tbsp low-sodium, gluten-free soy sauce
• 3 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp powdered sweetener, I use Ideal. You can also use a brown-sugar sweetener, if you can find it...the Netherlands does not seem to have it
• 1/2 clove of crushed garlic (this is optional)
• 1 tsp chili paste, I use the Conimex Sambal Oelek kind because there aren't many crazy, non-natural ingredients used, and its readily available at the neighbourhood Albert Heijn

What You'll Do:
Because this is a marinade, you can mix all the ingredients together and let your meat of choice sit in it, covered in plastic wrap, to soak, refrigerated in the flavour for a few hours, or, what I like to do if I am making poultry is this:

• Dice raw poulrty into equal-sized pieces (if you put your meat in the freezer for 45 minutes beforehand, it makes it a lot easier to cut!)
• Brown the meat on both sides in a non-stick frying pan
• Pour in the fully mixed marinade into the non-stick frying pan with the browned meat
• Let simmer until the meat is fully cooked and the marinade has almost all been soaked up 
• Voila! 

This makes perfect stir-fry meat to add into your Dukan-approved vegetables.

You can also use this marinade as the sauce for your vegetables - by pouring over top and allowing the vegetables to soak up the flavour. If I use it as a vegetable sauce, I will add a little water, maybe 1/3 cup so the vegetables have something to cook down inside.

You can also eliminate the garlic if it plays tricks on you, and just stick with the chili paste.

STEWART SCORE:
Appearance: 1 (Its brown and chunky...hardly magazine spread worthy)
Taste: 2
Ease: 2