Spiced Chickpea & Pumpkin Buddha Bowl

This is a lovely meat free Monday meal that you could swap out pumpkin for kumara, chickpeas for another kind of bean or lentil, but the principle is still the same.

Roast about 500g of pumpkin which you've cut into small pieces and drizzled with some olive oil and sprinkled with garlic powder, salt and either dried italian herbs or oregano. Roast until tender and browned nicely, about 20 - 25 minutes.

Put a cup of brown long grain rice into a saucepan with lots of water and a good pinch of salt and simmer until the rice is cooked. Remember that brown rice takes alot longer than white rice.

Pickle some red onion - slice about half a red onion and put into a small bowl with half white wine vinegar and half water so that it covers the onion. Add a good pinch of salt and sugar and leave.

Prepare some shredded cabbage, or if you're being quick/lazy then open a bag of coleslaw without the dressing, and prepare some green leaves.

When the pumpkin has about 10 mins of cooking time left, add a really good drizzle of olive oil to a medium saucepan and heat. Add to that about three heaped tablespoons of tomato paste and two tablespoons of chermoula spice blend (recipe below) and cook on a medium heat until fragrant, just a few minutes.

Add one tin of chickpeas, including the liquid from the tin, about 40g of butter and a tablespoon of brown sugar. Stir well and allow to simmer until thickened, about 5 mins.

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To assemble:

Divide brown rice, spiced chickpeas and pumpkin between four bowls. Top with slaw, green leaves and the pickled onion.

Its also better with some creamy dressing, garlic mayo or just sour cream work well, some herbs (parsley or coriander) and finally something crunchy - toasted almond flakes work really well. I can never resist a crumble of feta too!

Delicious!

Chermoula spice blend

2 tablespoons ground Cumin

1 tablespoon ground Coriander

1 tablespoon dried Oregano or Parsley

1 1/5 tablespoon Smoked or Sweet Paprika (I always use smoked because its what we have in)

1 teaspoon ground Cinnamon

1 teaspoon Garlic Powder

1/5 teaspoon ground Pepper

1/5 teaspoon ground Allspice

1/5 teaspoon Ginger Powder

1/5 teaspoon ground Turmeric

1/4 teaspoon Cayenne Pepper