Sweet pumpkin idly

When my maid asked do we eat pumpkin, I gladly said yes thinking about the white pumpkin(boodh gumlakai in kannada). Next day our maid arrived with sweet pumpkin. She told me how much in demand these pumkins were in her neighborhood as everyone were asking for it. I was so disappointed in seeing this as me and my husband both hate this vegetable. I couldn't say anything to her and accepted it silently. I was thinking hard what I could do with this, and didn't ask my mother who like us never bought this vegetable home anytime. I kept in a corner of my store room and tried to ignore it everyday. I was hoping it would rot and throw it one fine day. But my maid didn't leave me in peace, after few days she asked what did I do with the pumpkin. I prepared curry out of it, I lied. Before we were leaving to native for the Christmas vacation, I had to do something with the pumkin so i decided to do palya from it. Well it was a hit with my son. But just before the day we left, my maid bought another pumpkin. Oh my God, just when I thought I finished I got another one. This time it was a more ripe one. My husband scolded me for not telling the maid that we don't like sweet pumpkin. If I had told her in the first place I wouldn't have got the second one. After we came back from the vacation, googled about pumpkin recipes. Then my cousin visited us over the weekend. She said she would take a piece of it so I gladly cut and packed, but forgot to give her before she left.

But she gave a good recipe for the pumpkin Idly. I tried a couple of times and it came out good, and everyone was happy with the end result. I still have a quarter of pumpkin gazing at me in the fridge. Here is the recipe

1 cup rava/sooji

2 and 1/2 cup of grated sweet pumpkin

1/2 cup of grated jaggery, more if you desire more sweetness.

A pinch of salt

1 tsp of ghee to roast sooji

10-15 cashewnuts

1/2 cup of grated fresh coconut

1. Fry/roast rava till it becomes slightly brown.

2. mix roasted rava, grated pumpkin, coconut,cashew nuts, jaggery.

3. Put the mixture in idly molds and cook it for about 20 min in low flame( same way as we cook idlies).