Cooking notes: Pumpkin Chili

This is adapted from this recipe - I thought that the idea of thickening the chili with pumpkin had potential.

Ingredients
2 pounds ground turkey
1 lb dried large red kidney beans
2 – 14 oz cans pumpkin puree
3 – 14 oz cans crushed or diced tomatoes
4 cups water
1.5 cups frozen chopped onion
1 cup frozen green bell peppers
2 cloves garlic, diced – large spoonful of pre-diced
3 teaspoons cumin
3 tablespoon chili powder - to be honest, I just dump it in, it's probably more than that.
2 teaspoons dried oregano

Method
1. Set pot to saute.  When hot, brown  ground beef. Brown meat. Add diced onion, diced green pepper and garlic. Stir until the onion is fully thawed.

2.  Add kidney beans, pumpkin puree, water, cumin, chili powder, dried cilantro and dried oregano. Stir well. Switch pot to pressure cook and cook for 30 minutes

3.  Natural release for at least 10-15 minutes, check for done-ness.  When done, add tomato and then adjust seasoning to taste. 

Serves 8 for 395 kcal/serving

Result:  This made very large servings if divided into 8.

The result was palatable but bland.  The pumpkin thickened the chili but you really couldn't taste it.  It needed salt and more spice.  And perhaps something acidic - vinegar or lemon juice - to bring out flavor.  Adding cheese helped a bit, likely because it added salt.

I'd do something like this again but would maybe cut the amount of pumpkin down (in half maybe) and would add more salt, more seasoning, and something acidic to bring out the flavors more.