By: Chef Wendell Fowler, author of Eat Right, Now: Holy Temple Maintenance Guide
My message is, and always will be, that ‘food is the most powerful medicine on earth’. We are one large carbon-based, bio-chemical factory, which reacts to everything we put into it. Disease occurs when we put foods that are unnatural, or overly processed, into our Holy Temple; like chemically laden convenience foods that chip away at the crispy edges of our health.
If you desire to loose weight, lower your risk of developing lung cancer, diabetes, or heart disease, simply look to food as your solution, by changing your way of looking at food. Pumpkin contains Folate, which you may know about as a B-vitamin needed to prevent birth defects and also helps to lower levels of homocysteine, an indicator of heart disease. Plus, our orange friend is also brimming with magnesium, tryptophan, iron, zinc, fiber, and a little bit of protein. Everything our body needs to prosper.
Corn helps maintain your fading memory with Thiamin (Vitamin B1) and is jam-packed with fiber, vitamin C, phosphorus and manganese. The sweet potato in this dish provides valuable Beta Carotene, which aids in warding off cancer. What’s not to like? Your loving family deserves the best.
Corn and Pumpkin Chowder
Serves 6
INGREDIENTS
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and chopped
2 to 3 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup well-scrubbed sweet potato, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
6 cups vegetable broth
1 cup pumpkin puree
2 drops of liquid smoke
1 cup corn, frozen or cut from the cob
1/2 teaspoon dried or fresh thyme
1/2 teaspoons crumbled dried sage
1/2 cup soy, rice milk, or organic milk
salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
1. Heat olive oil in a large soup pot over medium heat. Add onion, garlic, and sweet potato; Sautee, stirring to coat the vegetables with the olive oil, until onion is translucent, just a few minutes.
2. Add vegetable broth and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low and cook, covered, 30 minutes, until sweet potato is tender.
3. Add pumpkin puree, corn, and herbs. Bring back to a boil, then reduce heat again and cook over low heat for 10 minutes. Stir in soymilk or organic milk and remove soup from the heat.
4. Puree half the soup in a blender and return it to the pot, stirring well to combine. Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stew In a Pumpkin Shell
Heart Food
1 large pumpkin
Sucanat, honey, real maple syrup, or stevia
2 large onions, chopped
Olive oil
3 pounds fake meat (Seitan / wheat meat, or ground up soy crumbles)
1 pound tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
3 1/2 pints veggie stock
2 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 pounds white potatoes, peeled and cubed
2 pounds raw pumpkin, cut in chunks (as best you can)
2 cans sweet corn
12 canned or fresh, yellow peach halves, sliced, saving the peach juice on the side
1 heaping teaspoon dried oregano
Sea Salt and pepper
To prepare the pumpkin, cut the top to form a lid, angle cutting so the lid will sit on and not fall in. Leave the stem for a handle.
Remove the "guts", the fibers and seeds and discard.
Scoop away most of the solid flesh, leaving a sturdy wall of pumpkin, being careful not to cut through it. Measure out 2 pounds of the raw pumpkin flesh for the stew and cube it the best you can. Replace the lid and set the pumpkin on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 long enough for the inside to get soft enough to scoop but will still hold up the weight of the stew. Remove from oven with an oven mitt.
Cook the onion, garlic and fake meat in a little oil until soft but not browned in a sauté pan. Transfer to a large saucepan. Add the tomatoes, tomato paste, the stock, a little sea salt and plenty of pepper to the ‘meat’ and onions. Cover and simmer until the ‘meat’ is heated.
Add the remaining ingredients, sweet and white potatoes, corn, cubed, pumpkin and peaches to the saucepan and cover with more stock. Return to a boil and simmer until the potatoes are cooked, and the liquid is thickened from the pumpkin scooped off inside gently with a spoon.
Add stew to pumpkin shell and stow it in the oven at 140 degrees for 15 minutes or longer if the walls are thick. Be careful not to collapse the walls. You can use a large casserole dish as a support for the walls.
Taste, correct the seasoning and add a little of the peach juice. Remove the pumpkin from the oven and ladle the stew into your set of soup bowls you’ve been trying to use for something. You could use baby pumpkins, but you’d have to cook them first a bit. Makes 6 to 8 servings.
For more information about Chef Wendell Fowler and his recipes, visit www.chefwendell.com.
