Roasted Pumpkin with Nuts and Manchego Cheese ...a warm and comforting low carb dish

This warm, comforting dish makes a versatile low-carb meal. Pumpkins collapse into 'roasted amazingness' together with hazelnuts and melted manchego cheese. It's quick and easy, perfect as a light vegetarian meal in itself, or as a side dish for meat, poultry or fish...

Ingredients

Serves Four

2 lbs (900g) pumpkins
3 tbsp. olive oil
1 cup (225ml) fresh parsley
4 oz. (110g) hazelnuts
2 tsp dried rosemary or dried thyme
½ lb (225g) manchego cheese 
salt and pepper 

Serving

10 oz. (275g) leafy greens
4 tbsp. olive oil
sea salt and ground black pepper 

Tips

Manchego is one of Spain's best known cheeses, and is made from ewe's milk. 

It has a slightly sour nutty-buttery taste and it's perfect for gratinating. Gratinating is to cook with a covering of buttered crumbs, or grated cheese, until a crust or crisp surface forms. However, if you don't have manchego, feel free to use any other cheese you have access to. How about some cheddar, blue cheese or feta? 

Do keep in mind that nuts are heat-sensitive, so they should not get burnt while gratinating. 

Recipe Instructions

can be found here

More about Manchego:

"Manchego (pronounced man-chey-go) is a popular, rich, creamy sheep's milk cheese that comes from the La Mancha region of Spain. The Manchego sheep graze on the shrubs of the vast plateaus of the Dehesa and produce a thick milk that gives the cheese its unique character. 

It is a semi-firm cheese that is a rich golden colour and a distinct nutty flavour ranging from mild to sharp depending on how long it has been aged. 

The distinctive zigzag pattern on the wax rind of the cheese proves that the cheese is Manchego and guarantees the exclusive use of milk only from Manchega sheep and that the cheese has been aged for a minimum of two months.

Availability:

Manchego is available in three different stages:

Fresh (fresco), 2-4 months old (curado), or matured for one year (viejo)."

See the above picture, words and more at article here

A variety of articles and recipe ideas are within this blog, and not all may be suitable for you. If you may have any food allergies, or underlying health issues these must always be taken into account. If you are a diabetic and not sure how certain foods may affect your blood sugars, test is best, i.e. use your meter.

All the best Jan