Fried Mealie Pap and Pumpkin cakes

Ingredients:

* 1 cup mealie/maize/corn meal - white or yellow
* 1 1/2 cups water
* 1/2 butternut pumpkin (or thereabouts)
* some oil for frying (rice bran oil was realy nice)
* some more mealie/maize/corn meal in a bowl to dip the cakes in

Do the thing:

1. peel and gut the pumpkin, and cut into smallish pieces. microwave/roast until soft, mash up into pumpkingoo, then let cool while you're doing the rest.
2. bring the water to the boil in a mediumish saucepan
3. gradually mix the mealie/maize flour into the boiling water stirring constantly, keep on low heat.
4. it'll thicken up all of a sudden. keep stirring until it starts threatening to burn in the bottom of the saucepan.
5. when you're sick of stirring, take off the heat and stir the pumpkingoo in. let it cool long enough for you to be able to play with it.
6. heat the oil in a fry pan.
7. get a tablespoon or two's worth of the goop, make it vaguely squished ball shaped, coat in the mealie/maize flour in the bowl.
8. fry in the oil until it goes crispy and a bit brown on the outside, then flip over and do the other side.

it's pretty good if it's still a bit gooey on the outside. also, it'd work wel with polenta. also, you could bake it in the oven in a big slab instead, but it doesn't get oily crispy delicious.