This week for Hive top chef we have the theme unusual.
As someone who doesn't consume animal products, many of the things I make may be unusual anyway.
Today I made use of what was already in my fridge and pantry. I decided to use some pumpkin that my manager was throwing out after Halloween. It was huge and used as a decoration.
When I asked her why she would throw it out she said she never used a fresh orange pumpkin before. After I said I wanted it, she asked for some. I chopped it up and took several pieces home.
I peeled it and diced it before I boiled it until it was tender.
At this point I wasn't sure where I was going with it. This had to be an unusual thing that even I haven't done before. I do the odd crazy concoction now and then.
My idea was coming together. I was making quesadillas.
Pumpkin mixture
4 or 5 cups cooked pumpkin
1 chopped onion
4 cloves minced garlic
1 teaspoon toasted cumin powder
1/2 teaspoon toasted ground coriander powder
1 teaspoon paprika
Squeeze of lime juice
1 teaspoon agave nectar
Salt to taste
After browning the onions and garlic add pumpkin and mash roughly.
I still had to make it unusual, as pumpkin is often used in a quesadilla. In my cupboard were raw peanuts. These jumped out at me so I toasted them to prepare another addition to the filling.
After toasting them in the pan, I put them in my mini chopper and blended roughly adding the juice of a lime and a tiny bit of water to get things moving in my really bad processor.
Peanut mixture
2 or 3 cups roasted peanuts
Salt to taste
Squeeze of lime juice
I was going to stop there with the fillings but I had some left over chickpeas in the fridge so this would be added as well.
I roughly mashed them then cooked them in a pan.
Chickpea mash
2 cups cooked chickpeas
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
4 cloves minced garlic
Juice of a lime
Salt and pepper
The fillings were now complete so I got out some flour and made some tortillas. I am not a fan of store bought tortillas, although I don't dislike them. For convenience those are perfect. I happened to have a day off from work so I went for it.
Flour tortillas
4 cups all purpose flour plus more for rolling
1 1/2 water
2 tablespoons vegetable shortening or oil
1 tablespoon salt
I rolled it out as thin as possible then used a bowl to cut out circles. I chose a bowl that was the size I was going for. If I was better at rolling perfect circles I wouldn't have used a bowl. A Mexican cook would probably laugh at me. Oh well it got the job done.
I stacked them up dusting with flour so they didn't stick.
They were cooked in a non stick skillet on medium high heat. I covered them for a few seconds then flipped them.
On to the sauce. I had a bunch of serrano peppers that I added to the tomatillos to make a spicy salsa. This required all fans going and the window open.
Tomatillos are not always easy to find but I have a Mexican grocer down the street from me that has all of these items.
Tomatillo pepper sauce
5 tomatillos
4 cloves garlic
1 shallot
7 or 8 serrano peppers (jalapenos or problanos would do)
Juice of a lime
1/4 cup cider vinager
Salt
1 sprig of green onion
If I had fresh coriander I would have added that as well.
Brown the garlic, shallot, tomatillos and peppers in oil then blend. I added a couple of spoons of vegan mayo to a portion of it to make it a little creamy.
Now that all of the items were complete the quesadillas would be filled.
After spreading all three fillings on the tortillas, I folded and put back in a medium heated pan to warm.
To me the unusual part of this is adding the peanuts. If you are a peanut lover like me, it really seals the deal.
The chickpea addition in combination of the pumpkin was all I needed as a cheese replacement.
This was supposed to be a share plate but Marc thought the whole plate was for him so he ate it all. Fortunately I didn't put all of them on the plate. Haha!
Thanks for stopping by!
