Posted by terrepruitt on September 27, 2017
It is that season! YAY! Stuffed pumpkins for dinner!!!! YUM! I posted this recipe in 2013 in my post Pumpkin For Dinner. But I was cleaning up my desktop a bit and I found these pictures from 2015 which are so much better than the ones from 2013. So I wanted to share them.
My poor friends on Facebook get oodles of stuffed pumpkins pictures during the season!
This is one of my favorite meals and this is the time of of year! Now I am so hungry for a stuffed pumpkin!
Have you tried it yet?
Posted in Food | Tagged: Cheese, Fall Meal, pumpkin for dinner, pumpkin recipe, Sausage, Stuffed pumpkin | 14 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on December 12, 2016
Oh, it has been too long since I posted on Monday. Just so much to think about right now it is difficult to focus on what to write for a blog post. I was busy with another project today so I was barely thinking about dinner much less a blog post. I had a sugar pie pumpkin that needed to be used. Normally with sugar pie pumpkins I make Pumpkin For Dinner but I didn’t feel like making that. I don’t know why. I LOVE that. But I just didn’t want to make it. So I thought I would make pumpkin soup. I have never make pumpkin soup before. I was certain there was a recipe online I could use. But when it came time to make dinner I didn’t feel like looking at a bunch of recipes to figure out which one to make. Or which ones I could use to make soup so I just made up something. For me . . . it was too bitter, but my husband loved it.
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Pumpkin Soup
1 sugar pie pumpkin
olive oil
garlic salt
1/2 large onion
32 ounces veggie broth
1 pumpkin beer
2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon marjoram
sprinkle of pepper
sprinkle of nutmeg
1/2 cup of milk
1/2 cup of water
Preheat the oven to 450° F. Wash the pumpkin, then cut it up in quarters. Removing all the seeds. Rub the pumpkin with olive oil and sprinkle both sides of each quarter with garlic salt. Then place the pumpkin – outside up – on a parchment paper lined baking pan. Then bake it for 30 minutes. Take the pumpkin out of the oven and turn each piece over, bake it for about 20 minutes more. This is where you have to decide if it is done in 20 minutes or needs more time in the oven. Use a fork, if needed, mine was kinda brown. It might have been more than 20 minutes.
While the pumpkin is roasting. Heat up some olive oil in your stock pot or soup pan. Chop the onion. Then cook the onion. Then add the broth. Then add the beer. Add the salt and all of the spices. Just let it barely boil.
When the pumpkin is done roasting put it in your super blender (or perhaps you have an immersion blender*) and blend it until you have a pumpkin puree.
Add the pumpkin puree to the liquid in the soup pot. Stir until incorporated. Then serve.
*with the immersion blender add the pumpkin to the liquid then blend until smooth
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So, I didn’t have anything to serve this with. I think I would have put some creme fraiche on top or some cheese. But I wasn’t sure. Strangely I didn’t taste it before I served it. As I said, I have a lot of things on my mind and I was doing three other things while I was cooking, so dinner was super late in the evening, and when I first tried to taste it, it was too hot. I didn’t try again. But it was ok.
My husband really liked it. He said it had a finish that tasted like Taco Bell’s Hot Sauce. Can’t say I am happy about that exactly, but then again, it allowed him to like the soup, so ok. But to me, it was too bitter.
So, help me out. Why was it bitter? Is cardamom bitter? Is cumin? Would cutting back on either of those help with the bitter?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: cardamom, cumin, ginger, marjoram, pumpkin for dinner, pumpkin soup, sugar pie pumpking | 6 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 12, 2013
I received a pumpkin in my organic produce box. I didn’t know what to do with it. I was looking at one of the blogs that I read on occasion and I saw a recipe for a stuffed pumpkin. I saved the recipe so that I could make it. I looked at the post a couple of times while I was thinking about it. There was a woman who commented with a link to her version of the stuffed pumpkin. When I posted the original (to me) posting on FB one of my friends commented, “I just made those.” Which, when she posted the picture to my wall, I vaguely remembered having seen it when she originally posted it. But it was before I had received a pumpkin so it didn’t really register. When I went to make my grocery list off of JJ Begonia’s recipe, I realized it was literally like a stuffed pumpkin as in BREAD stuffing. Like a turkey. I didn’t want to just use bread. Then I remembered my friend said she stuffed hers with sausage. The first two recipes have bacon in them, but I don’t like to buy a pound of bacon for only a couple of pieces. So I decided on sausage. I took ideas from all three people and came up with the below stuffed pumpkin recipe.
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Stuffed Sugar Pie Pumpkin
1 2 to 3 pound Sugar Pie Pumpkin
1-2 tbsp olive oil
salt
Six mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/4 pound sausage
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 cup cheese (small chunks)
2 tbsp ricotta
1 tbsp sherry
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
handful of spinach
four slices bread – toasted and cubed
Cut the top off of the pumpkin making a little lid. Scoop out the pumpkin guts. Then put a little oil and salt in the pumpkin and place it on a piece of aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes (check it after 20 minutes to see that it is not getting too cooked – after the 45 minutes you want it to be almost cooked, but not cooked so much it can’t stand another HOUR in the oven).
Heat the olive oil in the pan with the 1/2 of the onions. Once the onions are translucent put the mushrooms in the pan and cook them. Sprinkle with salt. As they are cooking mix in one clove of garlic. Cook the sausage, either after the mushrooms are cooked or use a different pan. If the sausage has a lot of grease drain it off once the sausage is cooked before you add the sausage to the rest of the ingredients.
Mix the mushrooms and the sausage in a bowl. Add the rosemary and thyme. Mix in the remaining two cloves of garlic and the onions. Mix in the cheese. Mix in the sherry and most of the cream (save a splash for the inside bottom of pumpkin). Add the spinach and bread cubes last. Mix it all carefully.
Pour the remaining splash of cream in the pumpkin. Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin. I used the spoon to press it down into the pumpkin.
Put the pumpkin in the oven for 60 minutes. After about 20 minutes I put the “lid” on. The pumpkin is done when you can gently pierce its side with a sharp object. Check to verify the inside it cooked to your liking. Since the mushrooms and the sausage are already cooked it is just a matter of it heating up and melting the cheese.
Slice and serve.
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This was good, BUT . . . . . I have some adjustments I would make for next time. I was thinking it would be full of flavor so I hardly used any salt which left it almost flavorless except for the thyme. Next time I will use LESS thyme and more salt and some pepper. You will notice I didn’t put any pepper in this. I don’t use pepper. But I can when I think that a recipe needs it. I will salt the inside of the pumpkin more prior to baking and prior to filling.
This was ALL that we had for dinner with a small salad and it was PLENTY! We were full. We each had a half. We did not have a pumpkin each. 🙂
As you can see from just this post there are at least four recipes to make stuffed pumpkin. I purposefully didn’t say what type of sausage, cheese, or bread I used because I want you to find your own flavor and texture. So follow one of the recipes or do it your own way. You have the basics . . . go play! If you do not follow my recipe . . . . please, please, please, tell us what you did. I would love to hear of more ways to make a pumpkin dinner!
Happy Fall!
I had not stuffed a pumpkin before. Have you ever stuffed a pumpkin and baked it?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: Cheese, Facebook, Fall Meal, FB, JJ Begonia, organic produce, pumpkin for dinner, pumpkin recipe, Sausage, Stuffed pumpkin | 9 Comments »
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