Dinner in a Pumpkin

For Halloween, last night, we decided to start a new family tradition and it turned out great. We made dinner in a pumpkin. A friend of mine said that they do it every year and love it, so I gave it a try. We thought it was really yummy and plan to do it again.

You start off with a medium sized pumpkin. You cut a wide hole in the top and clean out the seeds and the pulp. YUCK!

In a sauce pan, you make the casserole that goes in side it. There are lots of recipes on the the internet, I'll put the one we used on the bottom of this post.
Put the filling in the pumpkin and place in the oven. Bake at 350 for one hour or longer if your pumpkin is bigger.


When you pull it out it looks like this.

...and this.

We served it like this and it was sooooo YUMMY! You scoop out the meat part and some of the pumpkin. I have never had pumpkin plainly cooked like that but it was really good. I did think it needed salt.

ENJOY!!!!

Filling Recipe:

1 onion chopped

2 T vegetable oil

2 lbs ground beef

2 T soy sauce

2 T brown sugar

1 (4 oz) can of mushroom pieces

1/2 cup chicken broth

1 can cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cups cooked rice (I used long grain brown rice)

1 (8 oz)can slice water chestnuts drained

salt and pepper to taste

Brown the onion in the oil and add the meat. Drain drippings. Add the rest of the ingredients and heat through. Then put in pumpkin.