Beef chili with pumpkin

This dish takes quite a while to cook but it's well worth the wait. We actually realized a little bit too late that this stew had to cook for so long so we cut the cooking time just a little bit. The result probably would've been even better if we let it cook for the entire time but it ended up fine anyway.

Ingredients
(serves 4)
2 chilies
100 ml diced bacon
500 ml chopped onions
1 kg stewing beef, cut into 2-3 cm cubes
4 cloves garlic, peeled
chili powder to taste
1 tsp cumin seeds
½ tsp dried oregano
½ tsp ground coriander
½ tsp turmeric
½ tsp paprika
1 tsp sea salt
1 can diced tomatoes (about 400 ml)
300 ml beef stock;
500 ml fresh pumpkin cut into 3 cm cubes (½ small pumpkin)

Preheat your oven to 170 degrees. Sauté the bacon in a oven proof pot until it begins to brown. Add the onions and cook until tender, about 5 minutes. Add the beef to the pot, season generously with salt and pepper and stir to coat everything well. Set the pot aside. Place the chilies in a blender with 100 ml of water, the garlic, chili powder, cumin seeds, oregano, coriander and the sea salt. Blend to a puree and add more water if the puree is too thick. Add the chili puree to the pot with the beef, tomatoes and stock. Stir well to coat. Bring the whole pot to a simmer then cover and put in the oven to cook for about 2 hours. Uncover and cook for another hour, until the beef is almost fork tender. Add the pumpkin and stir well. Roast again uncovered for about 45 minutes, until pumpkin is soft, adding more water if the meat becomes uncovered. Season with salt and pepper and serve with garnishing such as koriander leaves, mint leaves, chopped red onion or diced avocado.

We served ours with some cauliflower rice and avocado