I had to share my dad’s pumpkin! Isn’t is cool!Justin’s isn’t too shabby either! (below)
For those of you who had good intentions to carve pumpkins and bought them, but didn’t quite get around to carving them, I have the recipe for you! It is one of Justin’s childhood traditions that we plan on carrying on, they call it simply Dinner in a Pumpkin! So fun.
So, clean out that pumpkin and roast the seeds.
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds:
- Preheat the oven to 400. Clean out seeds and separate them from the stringy part.
- In a small sauce pan, add the seeds, about 2 cups water and about a tablespoon salt. Bring to a boil, let simmer 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and drain.
- Spread on a roasting pan spray with olive oil cooking spray. Bake on top rack (maybe 20-40 minutes) til they begin to brown. Stir them once. Let cool and Enjoy!
We actually cleaned the pumpkins the night before. Then put the pumpkin in the fridge til we were ready to cook it.
Dinner in a Pumpkin; A Halloween Feast!
Servings approx 6 (probably more but being conservative) 8 Weight Watchers Points per serving
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1 small to medium pumpkin, deseeded and washed with cap on. Place on a cookie sheet (not necessary but easier to hold onto when removing) Begin cooking the pumpkin for approx 30 minutes. **if you have a large pumpkin which is what we had, cook for one hour empty.
Brown in large Skillet:
1 1/2 to 2 lbs Ground Beef ( I only used 1 lb but you can add more or less)
Add and Saute till vegetables are softened:
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
2 Tbsp Brown Sugar
1 onion chopped
Several large Mushrooms sliced
Add:
2 cups cooked rice (brown is best!)
2 cups cooked rice (brown is best!)
2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup
1 8 oz can Water Chestnuts sliced
Remove pumpkin after it has been cooking empty, add ingredients and cook until done. 30 minutes to an hour. The goal is to have the pumpkin completely cooked, so that you can scoop some of the pumpkin out with the beef mixture.
So good! Very fun!
IBC soda optional, but it looks so festive! Thanks to Cindy and Adam for giving it to us!
>That looks like a recipe we will use next year!
>I would advise that the recipe call for cooked rice or minute rice. I made this recipe tonight, and it was in the oven (and then on the stove boiling) for 3 hours… and the rice is still not done. It's a great recipe, but I should have pre-cooked the rice! I'll try it again soon.
>I grew up with and still make a version of this. We call it Dinner in a Pumpkin, too, but ours has beef, ham, tomato sauce, green peppers, black olives, and raisins in it with the rice. I'm definitely going to use your idea of precooking the pumpkin, though. We've never done that and ours always comes out a little crunchy.