It’s pumpkin season around here and we’re looking for yummy recipes featuring this delicious squash. Enter the Italian rice dish, risotto. On this episode of Three Kitchens Podcast, Heather walks us through the whole process, from fresh garden pumpkin to delicious pumpkin risotto with bacon and parmesan cheese.
Begin by roasting your pumpkin, and then purée it and store it in the freezer. Now you’re ready for all your favourite pumpkin recipes. But never fear! You can make this pumpkin risotto with canned pumpkin as well (just be sure to buy plain pumpkin purée, not pumpkin pie filling).
The method for making risotto really comes down to taking your time. That’s it. It’s actually very simple. The tricky part is timing it with the rest of your meal, but we have suggestions for that too – see the Zhuzh it Up! section of the risotto recipe on our website (link below). Oh, and don’t forget the wine. It’s essential, in our opinion.
We hope you enjoy this episode and give this recipe a try. It’s so easy and so good!
Episode Links
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~ Pumpkin Risotto Recipe (https://www.threekitchenspodcast.com/post/pumpkin-risotto-with-bacon-and-parmesan)
~ Tawâw Cookbook by Shane Chartrand (https://houseofanansi.com/products/taww)
~ Season 2 Episode 1 : Five Amazing Fall Recipes from Tawâw: Progressive Indigenous Cuisine (https://www.threekitchenspodcast.com/episodes/episode/4cf786fe/five-amazing-fall-recipes-from-tawaw-progressive-indigenous-cuisine)
~Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Miso-Bacon Sauce Recipe (https://www.threekitchenspodcast.com/post/a-sweet-potato-gnocchi-and-bacon-miso-sauce)
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Three Kitchens Podcast – a home cooking show
Check out our website where you can listen to all of our episodes, and find recipes on our blog (psst! there are even some extra recipes never discussed on the podcast!).
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You’re listening to three kitchens podcast hosted by Aaron Walker and Heather Dyer tune in weekly to get inspired and make good Food shall we quit laughing at ourselves and just we’re having a good little chuckle this morning we can get going with this episode yeah ah hello listener thanks for joining us here on three kitchens podcast I’m Heather I’m here with my friend Aaron good morning hi we’re sitting here in our jammies
Essentially you’ve got your giant sweater I’m starting to overheat it’s my comfy you know that thing it’s like a wearable blanket greatest invention ever I’m quite hot at the moment take off the headphones and peel this sucker off cuz I’m I’m starting to over actually in
Fact I will just kid there you go we’ll just pause right here I just there’s no perfect uh temperature at this time of year it’s like you you go out of the house in the fall and it’s like oh you know it’s a little chilly this morning
So you put on a sweater and you dress kind of warm and then by the time you say you do your shopping you come back out it’s like it’s sunny and hot what happened and this is the thing I’m always like overheating by the time I’m getting to like pack my groceries
Because I’ve worn like the sweater and the vest and I had like probably a hat on yeah and then by the time I make it to pack my groceries I’m like okay putting this off taking that off and then you have all this extra stuff and
Then you get out to your car and you’re like oh I got to put the heat back on because now I’m yeah I’d like my seat heater on now please yeah oh you know that I just got a new car recently and it has a heated steering wheel my first
Ever people listening are like oh yeah I’ve had one of those for years but this is my first heated steering wheel and it feels very fancy I’ve been using it already heated steer actually didn’t know that was an option so I’m living my most recent vehicle purchase was 2011 so
I had an 09 so you know and you know what else they have now on fancier cars than mine cooled seats this is what I’ve heard is the seat cooling oh my God I test drove one with cooled seats and my husband and I were both like uh can we
Get this but no we couldn’t afford that car in particular but anyway I do have a heated steering wheel which is quite nice excellent okay so now we’ve talked we’re in Fall yes it’s uh sweer weather as we keep saying and one of the harvests at this time of year at least
In the northern hemisphere where we are is pumpkins Aaron you’ve grown pumpkins in your garden I had a wicked year for pumpkins so I got 10 pumpkins out of my garden one giant carving pumpkin and then the rest of them are all little pie pumpkins which feel like rocks now that
I’ve picked them and put them they’re dense yeah they’re solid little guys so I’m going to have enough pumpkin to uh live off of pumpkin related products for a while so I’m really excited to know what you’re making with pumpkin because I need some I need
Ideas oh yeah for sure so I got two pumpkins from my sister who gets some from her in-laws who have a farm and apparently this year they decided to plant a smaller pumpkin patch and they only planted I think it was nine plants or something but they got like 50
Pumpkins like an outrageous number and these are not small little these are all pie pumpkins sorry about the dog you can hear the dog losing her mind somewhere in my house um these are pie pumpkins so like you said they’re solid like they’re not the carving ones and they don’t look
Super big like I think it weighed like 10 lb but that’s 10 lb of pumpkin P practically I had two of them two 10B pumpkins and so what I did was cut it in half I got my husband to help me with a big knife and like whack that thing in
Half scoop out there’s very little guts in the middle of it right and very few seeds it’s not the kind of it’s not like a carving pumpkin that has all those nice seeds inside that you can roast like you do at Halloween very little innards in what do you actually call the
Inside of a pumpkin I call it guts and innards it’s it must be where the plant starts it seeds and then it’s kind of like the stringy stuff so you scoop that out of each half and you just place them cutsside down on a baking sheet I barely
Fit the two onto one baking sheet like they were so big that is a massive pie pumpkin and I roasted it one at a time so one pumpkin at a time roast it in the oven until you can kind of stick a fork into it and it goes in nice and smooth
It’s soft right let it cool a bit because they’re really hot to handle yeah scoop all that yummy pumpkin out toss the the skin cuz you don’t need that part right and then I just puree it I didn’t add anything to it I just pureed it but if I would think if you
Had any trouble pureeing your pumpkin you could add a bit of water to thin it in your blender most of the time those fresh pumpkins have a lot of moisture in them so you don’t have to worry and you don’t want to add too like you wouldn’t
Want to add a whole bunch of moisture to it if you didn’t have to but mine Blended up real quick and then I divided it out into little freezer bags one cup in each bag and then I laid them all flat and I put them in the freezer and
Now they’re just these little flat packages of pumpkin that I just put them all in this boxes these nice little packages I just love that they’re so organized and neat and tidy and so if I’m going to make pumpkin pumpkin muffins or loaf or pie I know already that it’s measured out into
One cup I just need to thaw it out and then it’s good to go it makes me very happy I like doing this also with I process my beets this way so I boil and blend and bag and I do it with uh zucchinis too only you don’t have to go
Through the whole boiling part I just grade it up on a grater portion it in one cup portions and I do the same thing with the little with the bags flat Frozen although I haven’t gone as far as organizing those further because I’m often chasing them around my freezer by
The end of the season being like hm how much frozen food do I have left so that’s a really good tip well I find I do the same thing and I find I’m like rooting around in the bottom of my freezer and I go oh there’s still
Zucchini in here like because it gets lost so it’s like an Easter egg hunt by the time April hits that’s true but it’s still good and you can still use it and Y not everything can be a banana that you just toss right in the freezer unfortunately
Unfortunately so what are you doing with your pumpkins now that you’ve got them roasted and PID well I plan on doing lots of things but for today we are going to make a risoto with fresh pumpkin the other thing about fresh pumpkin is that it is yellow if you’ve
Never seen fresh pumpkin it doesn’t look like the stuff you get in the jar pumpkin puree which is totally fine if that’s what you’ve got that’s good too just buy the plain uh pumpkin puree not the pumpkin pie filling which has sugar and spice and whatever else in there but
The canned stuff is brown which is there’s nothing wrong with it it just looks different than the fresh frozen pumpkin that I’m talking about so I found this recipe that looks really delicious and I have made risoto before but it’s been a long time and it was a
Butternut squash risoto that I made so and we really liked it so I’m quite confident that a pumpkin risoto will also be really delicious mhm risoto if you’re not familiar a risotto is a an Italian rice dish that is cooked with broth until it reaches a creamy
Consistency so I think it’s an arborio rice and you’re adding a little bit of liquid broth wine combination of both so good and you’re adding it bit by I’m miming Heather taking a sip of wine and then popping it into the dish well I’m not the first to say if you’re cooking
With real wine buy the one you like so that you can drink it while you cook with it um and you’re basic adding it little bit by little bit and stirring and stirring until it evapor like it Cooks down and is absorbed by the rice and then you add more and you’re going
Until it’s all done you don’t just add a ton of water in there or broth or wine you’re adding it in little bits and little bits and little bits and stirring and stirring and stirring I have never made risoto before so uh you have me
Okay so I I remember hearing back when I made this and it was a long time ago like living in a different house long time ago so you know that was kids long time ago yes and I remember hearing or reading or whatever that it was very
Timec consuming and very finicky and you have to you you’re standing at the stove and you’re stirring and at the time that did seem like a lot of work to me but at this point having done so many different things in the kitchen and spent so much
Time standing in my kitchen and working at it doesn’t even phase me like so what you’re stirring who cares drink your wine stir your rice it’s going be it’s going to be good put on your favorite podcast and cook away if you’re Aon you’re listening to some farming um
Content if you’re me you’re listening to True Crime so you know whatever you like whatever you like to listen to or play your favorite music and sing and annoy your children with your terrible singing voice that’s also an option that’s how you get the kitchen to
Yourself if they walk in change it over to your favorite music even if they can’t hear the music and it’s in your ears just start singing you’ve got the whole kitchen to yourself in no time you know what that’s even better because we all know we sing probably Out Of Tune
When we can’t hear our own voice just put on those headphones and sing yeah and you probably sound as terrible as the kids think you do yeah yeah that’s good yeah that’s that’s how you have the time and space to drink your wine and make your rice exactly okay so this
Risoto let’s see what the ual name of this recipe is pumpkin risotto with bacon and Parmesan oh very simple right like we all know those flavors are going to go great together there’s bacon onion stock which could be vegetable or chicken I will most likely do chicken because I always have homemade chicken
Stock in my freezer just got to remember to take it out in advance that’s the challenge yeah it happens to have a cup of pumpkin puree which is perfect for my pre-measured little organized freezer ding dong a small bunch of fresh thyme salt pepper arboro rice white wine
Butter honey and parmesan cheese I think all these flavors it sounds simple and nothing can go wrong with this no um I’ll go through obviously in the second half how I how I did it but it’s very simple I’ve already told you you’re basically just going to be stirring
You’re going to be stirring that Rice until it all comes together and then uh I don’t know if this recipe suggests it but I remember also learning that you want it serve risotto from the stove serve your risotto you don’t want it sitting cuz it will get kind of gummy
And thicken up okay that makes sense yeah because of the starch and the rice I think you can still reheat later but it won’t be as good as when it’s like that fresh off the stove nothing really beats that for some dishes yeah there’s just um some things are better later
Like as leftovers or the next day but some things are better right away yeah and maybe this is one of them I guess we’re going to find out oh this is exciting yeah so this recipe what I just told you with the one cup of pumpkin makes four servings so it’s possible I
May make more right we’ll see how it goes I’m looking forward to it I want to do something Savory with this pumpkin yeah I’m very much looking forward to what you’re doing with your pumpkins I’ve got mine in now in the basement and I’m waiting for them to they’ve started
Turning but they’re not 100% there yet and I am anxiously awaiting hey listeners thank you for joining us for this episode did you know that pumpkins are native to North America and were historically an important food Staple in Native American diets if you’re interested in exploring more indigenous cooking we recommend checking
Out Shane chartran cookbook toow we cooked five amazing recipes from it a couple years back including a Savory pumpkin salad check out the show notes for a link to that episode and more and go find this awesome cookbook now back to the risotto okay Aaron do you want to
Hear how to make risoto I do I bought my rice I have my pumpkin ready I want to know how to make this cuz I’ve never made it before and I’ve got to have it now how are your pumpkins did they turn orange yes oh good yeah my big one seen
Them my big one’s orange and almost all my little ones are orange I got nine pumpkins to work with nice it’s my year for pumpkins yeah you had a great little Harvest there okay well let me tell you about pumpkin risoto with bacon and Parmesan okay please let’s start with the bacon
Half a pound of bacon diced so cut it up before you cook it okay put it in your some kind of heavy bottom pot in an even layer over medium heat and you know once it starts to sizzle and and stir it around a bit and you want it to be
Crispy but not like don’t go nuts don’t like turn it to dust you know what I mean yeah sometimes you get those bacons and you bite it into it and it’s like too hard and too crispy but then if it’s not crispy enough it’s like chewy and fatty so you want somewhere in
Between those two ends that’s right that’s right I mean really we probably don’t need to tell anybody how to cook bacon but just in case there you go take it out put it on paper towel set it aside then you’re going to dice a small
Onion and uh add that to your pot with the bacon fat that’s in the pot sauté for about 5 minutes until it starts to soften and while that’s happening put your stock in a sauce pan over medium heat you have a quart of stock which I believe is about four cups
I always have to do the conversion because I’m like why is it a quart who talks in quarts I don’t I don’t know me but my measuring cup my four cup measuring cup says four cups one quart and that is the only reason there you go yeah okay you can use vegetable or
Chicken stock you know I use chicken because I always have chicken stock in my freezer that I make when I roast chicken mhm and add your cup of pumpkin puree to your stock and whisk it in so that it warms up along with the stock you want the liquid that you’re putting
Into your risotto to be warm when you add it in there oh okay okay so that’s warming nicely now your onion is softened you’re going to add thyme salt and black pepper to the onions and the thyme you’re just going to do a like a bundle oh okay a small
Bunch tie it up into a little bundle and put it in your pot now it kind of feels like it gets in the way as you’re like stirring it move you have to keep shuffling it around so if you prefer you could just put that fresh time take it off the
Stems and put it in I think it would be just fine but in this method you’re going to take it back out again later you’re just cooking with your little bundle in there and then you’re going to stir the rice into it a cup of our boreo
Rice you’re going to stir it into the onions with the bundle of thyme and the Bacon Fat Bacon Fat yes it smells so good you’re going to toast that rice for a couple of minutes and then you’re going to start adding liquid so the first thing you’re putting in is white
Wine now I just said things should be your wine is not warm right it could be room temperature it probably be from the fridge I don’t know I had a I had purchased a bottle specifically to make rotto so it was like at room temp I
Hadn’t put it in the fridge or anything I’d say choose the kind of white wine you like to drink and I don’t think it matters what type of wine it is just pick the kind you like okay the alcohol obviously is going to cook off so if
That’s a concern for you or if you really don’t want to to use wine you could probably use cooking Cherry get that same kind of flavor out of it or just add an extra half a cup to your broth but I think the wine gives it a
Nice I feel like that’s a necessity yeah okay I’m trying to make it like accomodating for people but I kind of agree I kind of feel like when the recipe suggests some sort of alcohol to put in usually a reason yeah like it just adds so much more flavor I for the
Longest time I’d be like me I’ll just use but once I started cooking more with wine I was like oh yeah no this actually makes a big difference in in my opinion yeah when you smell it there’s something about wine in there with the bacon fat
And the onions like it’s just oh so good yeah like I I’ve always got wine going do you even you don’t drink it even though I don’t drink it I keep it in my fridge and just cook with it okay the problem for me would be I would drink it
And then it’ be gone and I’m like damn it I thought I had wine in here no I drank it though that’s a reason to buy the wine that’s not quite your favorite if you have a hard time keeping it on hand right okay okay good point uh okay so you’ve added
Your wine you’re going to stir get a big wooden spoon you’re going to be stirring quite a bit so okay get comfy either standing next to the stove or grab a stool and sit your butt down there you go so you’re going to stir it until the
Rice has absorbed all the wine okay then you’re going to start add your broth a ladle at a time so get your soup ladle it’s about a third of a cup at a time you put in your Ladle of broth and you stir until it’s completely absorbed into
The rice then you add another one and you stir and you just keep it moving until you’ve added all the liquid and it takes close to half an hour I would say was probably about 25 minutes okay of adding stirring and don’t like get patient and add more liquid because
You’re still going to be there until it absorbs so like okay just do it in small bits I think that’s the method for risoto so just be patient sit down pour that wine I was going to say this is where the wine comes in really handy
Doesn’t it one for you one for me yes exactly okay then uh when all the liquid is in it’s all been absorbed your rice is cooked you remove that bundle of th stir in butter honey and half a cup of shredded parmesan cheese you’re going to
Stir that all in once the butter and the cheese have melted ideally you’ll serve this immediately garnish with the bacon put lots of bacon stir it right in there it’s so good and then a little extra cheese on top more black pepper if you like and that is it like that’s how you
Make risoto it’s a little timec consuming I guess yeah I guess we are often just adding water to rice boiling and walking away whereas this one you got to just keep moving it yeah you got to keep the stirring going so it’s not the easiest thing if you’re making it as
A side dish and you have something else on the go that you have to tend to I would say just think about your entire meal and what you’re having with now that said you and I did not eat this immediately from the pot I delivered it
To you and then I put mine in the fridge too and we ate it later because I didn’t have time to make it right just right before dinner right yeah and I actually added just a little more broth when I warmed it up to kind of just loosen it
Up a bit and I thought it was good that’s exactly what I did I just splashed some broth in there in a pot stirred it around until everything got warm I don’t see anything wrong with that yeah and the bacon we had put the bacon in so we reheated it with the
Bacon in and you could totally do that too it was good it was great yeah I thought this was fantastic I loved the flavors in here you know what it reminded me of the nois that I made oh the butternut squash no the butternut squash with the bacon and miso oh yeah
Sauce that was great I think it was the bacon and the Bacon fat and then that squashy pumpkiny flavor those two things together should be married always in every Savory Dish as far as I’m concerned oh yeah that was a great be too yeah I thought the the pumpkin
Flavor is quite mild this is not like overly heavy on any one flavor really like it’s not heavy on the pumpkin it’s not heavy on like you’re not really tasting the wine it’s not like oh too much bacon well I mean it could be if
You don’t like bacon as much as we like bacon but you can decide how much bacon you put like if you serve it with the bacon on the side people can put however much bacon Bon they want my family was like is there any more bacon yeah that
Would be my family too they’re bacon holics yeah no I liked the flavors in this and I’ve always been so intimidated by the thought of cooking risoto I had no idea how to do it now I I’ve already bought my arboreal rice I’ve got my bag
It’s G to happen this week oh yeah and you know what I did even though we ate ate it for dinner later I did of course taste it like right when it was done and it is like extra creamy yeah gooey like right out of the pot right when you
Finished it it is that there’s a reason they say serve it immediately because it is a little elevated at that point cuz it’s just extra creamy so if you can time it maybe do cook your protein ahead of time or something that’s going to sit in the oven prep your protein and then
Just have a fresh salad already prepared mhm totally I know what I’m doing for dinner a nice chunk of like crusty bread if you don’t mind a few more carbs and you can kind of use that to scoop up your rice like oh I just yeah this is
Great it’s really good and the kids liked it too they were like there’s pumpkin like they were kind of like what but they liked it sometimes it’s best to tell them after you made something and they’re like oh wow this is amazing you’re like oh did you know this has
Mushrooms in it that’s true yeah my family always complains that my rice is too plain cuz I often we’ll just make plain steamed rice cuz I guess I’m just boring like that we eat that a lot too yeah yeah so now I am going to throw
All the flavors at them and we’re going to have this for sure on the side now that I know how to make it I have been anticipating these instructions you can make risoto I mean if you look up recipes for risotto you can make it with almost like you talked about mushroom do
It like with mushrooms and beef broth and you’ll have a completely different thing I once made it I think actually the only other time I’ve ever made risotto but it was butternut squash and vanilla bean and it was like wow we’re both making faces like what it was so good it
Pause for dramatic effect yeah so you could get really creative with your risoto yeah I think so I feel like I can imagine a lot of different flavors that would go good with this as long as you have Bacon fat and if you don’t want to do bacon we
Were talking about this yesterday in another conversation about how keep your Bacon Fat after you just make bacon for breakfast or whatever keep it in a little Jam Jar in the freezer and pull that out and use the fat to sauté your onion and your rice and even if you
Don’t have bacon you could still have that flavor of the Bacon Fat exactly Bacon fat is an essential oil in my house yeah don’t be intimidated as we were about r just super easy really yummy everybody will like it change up your carb yeah it’s easy to do these little
Things that just Elevate an everyday meal to something so much better well I’m glad you enjoyed the risoto oh my gosh so much all hail the pumpkin the Great Pumpkin let’s all just keep eating pumpkin for as long as all year round you can always buy pumpkin season starts
Now and it ends never and now for the fine print join us over on the socials Facebook Instagram YouTube and on our website at 3itch podcast.com remember when you like follow subscribe and leave us a review it helps more people find us thank you so much for listening it says here in
Folklore cinnamon Ginger and clove are said to repel the evil and foul remember that when you hear people complaining about pumpkin spice