On Sunday, we had lunch at my aunt’s. I came back home with a lot of goodies, one of which was a pumpkin!

I decided to cook again the recipe that my husband liked a lot last time, Pumpkin pasta with my own twist this time.
This Pumpkin weights about 4kgs. I only used half of it for this recipe.

Pumpkins

Ingredients:

• 2 kgs  Pumpkin  peeled, seeds removed & cut to cubes
• 1 pack of spaghetti pasta
• 2 onions diced
• 1 clove of garlic
• salt & pepper to taste
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon (goes really well with pumpkin)
• 2 cubes of chicken stock (not liquid, the pumpkin contains enough water)
• 1/4 cup of white wine (whatever is available)
• 2 tbsp of pine nuts for garnish
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Preparation:

Heat the olive oil in a non-stick pan, then add the onions on medium heat for 5 mns or until they become translucent.
Add the garlic and stir for one minute, then add the pumpkin, salt, pepper cinnamon and close the lid and let it simmer for 25 minutes or until the pumpkin becomes tender.
At this stage you can prepare the pasta by adding the pasta to the salted boiling water,  and cook it according the package instructions.
Now we can add the wine to the pan and the stock cubes after splitting them to pieces and stir until they dissolve
Taste and adjust seasoning.
Serve the pumpkin and the pasta together and garnish with pine nuts

Hope that you will enjoy this recipe, I promise to post a photo of the dish soon.

At last! The letters of  acceptance arrived, and we were chosen as delegates for the 2009 convention in Italy Rome.

I am very excited to visit Italy again, but the preparations should start very early this year.  My husband and I are planning to spend a couple of months (hopefully more if  all is OK) in different regions in Italy during the coming summer. For that we have been busy lately trying to contact people who know people who know other people that can help us find a suitable apartment to rent in Rome or Florence.
Now that it is sure that we are going to attend the convention, we will be staying in Rome from the 4th of August till the 11th. We might extend our stay in Rome if we find a house to rent there. And I am planning to visit all the  sights we weren’t able to visit last year (detailed posts about that coming later!)

Here are some photos of Rome from our last trip.