This week's recipe was an appropriately autumnal Afghani dish, kaddo bowrani, composed of tender sugared pumpkin and a rich meat sauce. Using local ingredients, I worked from two recipes, one on Chowhound and one from The SF Chronicle, both based, I believe, on the kaddo bowrani at Helmand.

I browned the sliced pumpkin, and then covered it with honey and baked it for about an hour. I am sure an even longer cooking time would have continued to improve the texture, but even an hour rendered it smooth and meltingly gell-like, and turned it a dark translucent orange. The meat sauce, while delicious, didn't match up with my (admittedly quite distant and hazy) memory of eating the dish at Helmand. It was still an absolutely perfect October meal, so sweet, spiced, and warming, and I can see making this pumpkin as a dessert treat after any meal.