Rice is a fundamental food in many cultural cuisines around the world. It has ability to provide fast and instant energy, regulate and improve bowel movements, and stabilize blood sugar levels, while also providing an essential source of vitamin B1 to the human body. Do you know that rice slows down the aging process? When I learned Vedic meditation from Tim Mitchell (http://www.vedicmeditation.eu/en/ayurveda/), he told me that after the age of fifty, one should eat rice and not wheat.

We love rice and I am always on the look out to create new preparations with rice. Here is a nice dish that combines pumpkin with rice.

Ingredients:

1 cup rice
200 gms pumpkin
Salt
2 tbsps Oil
1 Bay leaf
½ tsp grated ginger
1 green chilli cut fine
A few curry leaves
¼ tsp Cumin seeds
¼ cup roasted and ground pea nuts
1 tsp sugar
2 tbsps water

Method:

• Cook the rice and keep aside.
• Clean and cube the pumpkin, smear with oil, add salt, roast in the pre heated oven at 250 degrees for ½ hour to 45 minutes. Keep a small bowl of water in the center of the pumpkin pieces so that they won’t dry out.
• Cut the roasted pumpkin into small pieces.

• Heat oil in a thick bottomed vessel; add cumin seeds, when they splutter, add the bay leaf, grated ginger, cut green chilli, and curry leaves. Stir for ten seconds.
• Add the pumpkin pieces, sugar and mix well.
• Add the cooked rice, salt, roasted and ground peanuts, and 2 table spoons of water.

• Mix well and remove from the fire after about 4 minutes. Serve hot.