Dinner in a Pumpkin

Yum! I have to thank my friend, Natalie, for this recipe. It was so fun to use a pumpkin for something other than carving! After the pumpkin patch trip today, I decided to try this recipe out. Our pumpkin wasn't big but it still worked great (we just ate the excess 'stuffing' without the pumpkin). I didn't even have all the ingredients and substituted ground beef with ground turkey and it still tasted great. I think more than anything, it's just so festive and cute!




Dinner in a Pumpkin
1 small to medium pumpkin .Cut off top, clean out seeds and pulp.

Lightly brown 1 lb. of ground beef

Add:

½ c. chopped celery

½ c. chopped onion

¼ c. diced green onion

1 tsp. salt

Dash of pepper

-Cover and simmer over low heat about 10 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Add:

2 c. cooked rice

1 can cream of chicken or mushroom soup

4 oz. sliced mushrooms

2 tbsp. brown sugar

3-4 tbsp. soy sauce

-Put mixture in pumpkin, replace lid, place on baking sheet in a 400 degree oven. Bake until pumpkin is tender (allow 1- 1 ½ hours). Cut in sections or scoop out to serve. Be sure to scoop a little of the cooked pumpkin with the filling.

So you could totally do this vegetarian style too with lots of portabella mushrooms. I used cream of potato because that's all I had around. I didn't have any green onions or mushrooms so I'm sure it would taste a little more flavorful with those. I thought of throwing in some zucchini I had but decided not too. Lots of different options!