‘Twas a Pumpkin of an Evening

I hadn’t had my sister and her family over for dinner in ages and felt it was long overdue!  Last night we finally got together.

In September I bought a lovely Cinderalla pumpkin with the intention of doing something good with it.  I was supposed to compare it to a regular every-day pumpkin but I ended up  cooking our  Hallowe’en one before it rotted out and frankly didn’t feel like having my ovens taken over by pumpking everything at that time.

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So, I knew I was going to make a tapas-type meal using as much pumpkin as I could (without feeling it had taken over!)

I started off the evening with some pumpkin hummus (recipe on my recipe page!), served with some veg and toasted whole-grain tortilla chips to nosh on while I finished my last minute preps.

We then moved into the dining room and continued on with the feast!

First up, the duo of tartares (salmon and tuna) – my portions were just a little too big because with extra tartare comes more bread and well…. a tendency to overstuff!  The salmon was the classic caper, dill, chive, lemon and the Tuna was a more of an Asian style with sesame oil, sriracha, lime.

Next up, pan-seared scallop with bacon on super thinly sliced beets

Then, shrimp with chorizo (an Emeril Lagasse recipe)

Time for a little break in richness…. salad greens with pan-seared pumpkin and a vinaigrette made with pumpkin oil (thanks Karen!)

Then came the pumpkin soup (recipe on recipe page)

No, no, we’re not done yet!  The “main course” if you will, was an Asian-marinated pork tenderloin with roasted veg (forgot to add my pumpkin!!!)

The wines for the evening were:

Aaaaaannnnndddd to cap off the evening, should there be room in the belly – and, let’s face it, there’s always room for dessert!!! – a chocolate pumpkin mousse cake (was supposed to be white chocolate but I screwed up the first one (the soufflé did not soufflé!), had to go buy more chocolate, bought dark chocolate in error  (in my defense, the boxes are practically the same!) so it became a half white , half dark chocolate pumpkin mousse cake!

I don’t think anyone was tempted to stop off at McDonald’s on their way home….

(Note to self, if I am to use my iPad for my pictures, as most of these were taken with it, I will ensure I have enough lighting and/or ensure I don’t move. Sorry for the blurriness of the photos!)