Pumpkin, kale & hazelnut galette

Cheesy spelt pastry filled with kale pesto cream cheese, roast pumpkins (what's left of them - a sorry tale follows), caramalised onions and hazelnuts.

I have eked out the pumpkin harvest.

A little too far, it turns out. I rationed the use of them so parsimoniously lest I run out, that some have given up hope of ever being eaten and turned to mush. But, as if in retaliation for having been kept waiting too long, they appear totally fine until you pick them up and only then do all the rotten internal organs, seeds, flesh, the lot, evacuate themselves through a soggy hole in the hidden bottom of the squash and all over your gardening jeans. A final, malicious flounce.

The Crown Prince squash are more patient.

Most of these bigger, smoother squash seem to have survived where the Futsu Black Early variety has not. But I do need to use them up. And since each one weighs around 3kg, that means a few batch cooking sessions. Fortunately, the archive offers plenty of solutions (several free to read BTW):

Pumpkin and sage cake with thyme and feta frosting - from my cookbook.

Pumpkin tikka masala with flatbreads - also from my cookbook.

Pumpkin gnocchi with herb butter - a recipe I wrote for Go Organic.

Smoky squash shakshuka

Roast squash & lentil salad for the continuing quince glut

Pumpkin Day arrives & a tart to celebrate

Pumpkin and sage rarebit

Atonement for Halloween soup

And stay tuned because next week, I have a squash recipe from my next book, Rough Patch, that I’ll be sharing. Here’s a taster:

But before all that, a galette that puts these patient pumpkins finally centre stage, giving them the attention they so crave by laying them on a bed of kale pesto cream cheese and ensconcing them in cheesy, spelt pastry.

Pumpkin, kale and hazelnut galette

The pastry, which is rustic and wholesome in flavour and should be equally rough in its free-from appearance, can be made a day in advanced then rolled when needed. The pumpkin can be roasted in advance too, and the kale filling prepped ahead, making it an easy job to assemble, cook and serve to adoring crowds.

Serves 6

• ½ a pumpkin or squash (approx. 1kg) cut into wedges

• 2 large onions, peeled and quartered

• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

• 2 garlic clove whole and unpeeled

• 50g raw kale, chopped