(Nagmaalpampoen) Guava and Pumpkin Roast

Nagmaalpampoen

Nagmaalpampoen directly translated means communion pumpkin. In the olden days the chuch people had to travel from afar to get together for church. They specifically went “all out” for communion Sunday where they afterwards cooked and ate together. Later on, the Sunday meal still meant one almighty lunch, whether people had to travel or not to get together. I first had this pumpkin dish at a friend’s house (on a Sunday of course) when I was still a student. Years later when I still made my own recipe cards, I found the recipe in an Afrikaans magazine and it became one of my favourite special recipes. That collection of cards now got replaced by ipads and blogs😉 and somehow as we do, I stupidly forgot about this dish and haven’t made it in years. I still have my recipe box and will save it for my daughter.

My recipe cards!

I do not know what made me think of it again but a lightbulb moment later, I made it today for Sunday lunch (to which day and meal the recipe now belongs). The original recipe like they did in those days had tinned this, syrup and sugar that, so instead, I used fresh ingredients.

Use the following:

Pumpkin (unpeeled) in chunks

Peeled guavas cut in quarters

2 Cinnamon sticks

Sprinkle with olive oil and pumpkin spice. (I used a wonderful blood orange infused olive oil from Willow Creek and If you do not have pumpkin spice, use cinnamon and cloves)

250ml orange juice(I added apple juice with the orange because I had it)

125 ml butter

Bake in the oven until glistening, soft and the sauce is caramelised

If you like it sweeter, add sugar or Xylitol before baking.

Pumpkin and guava bake

I love cooking with fruit and the pumpkin I served it with roast leg of lamb baked with apple which a blogged about here.

Roast lamb with apple

Random Photo:

Art and sculptures at Delaire Graff Estate Stellenbosch Winelands

Those figures are my idea of tranquility.

Hands

My absolute favourite and what a joy to see the original unexpectedly!

Tretchikoff at Delaire Graff

Tretchikoff: Chinese Girl

Kitch! Those were the days….

We spent a weekend in the whale coast town of Hermanus, Western Cape and we sort of happened upon the delightful Kitch Cafe in one of the many side streets and nooks and crannies this town seems to have. Oh what I would give to have this vinyl kitchen cupboard! Elvis of course had to feature somewhere. The Cafe is proudly kitch and beautiful with a good selection of Vladimir Tretchikoff prints hanging all over and so reminded me of a lot of South African homes of my youth. Read more about Tretchi at http://www.vladimirtretchikoff.com My mother used to have a copy of the swan painting, beatifully  and ornately framed and I really wish I knew what happened to it. The crying boy featured in a lot of homes in the 70’s! For me the spanish  “dance doll” has to take the cake! I have not seen this for many years and remember an aunt that had them in the brightest of orange and bright red, proudly displaying them between other kitch items in her “formal” lounge, imagine….. We only had coffee but the food we saw looked great and the service was excellent. Old Afrikaans LP covers used as place mats, nice touch!  I will for sure go back for a lunch and to reminisce more about the past. Ahhh, those were the days! Visit Kitch Cafe in person where kitch is really cool or on their facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Kitch Cafe Hermanus-“Whale Capital of South Africa”