Posted by terrepruitt on November 27, 2020
I’ve posted this everywhere else (FB and Twitter) already, but I really love this picture so I wanted to have it here. The pumpkin was delicious. Stuffed pumpkin always is. Here is a picture of our dinner from a few nights ago for today’s Friday Photo!
Posted in Friday Photo | Tagged: Facebook, Friday Photo, Stuffed pumpkin, Twitter | 3 Comments »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 23, 2020
Well, tonight I am making a stuffed pumpkin for dinner. And as usual I am getting a later start than I wanted. I was playing around with something on my website and time just slipped by. I even went down to start, but came back up to grab my phone for the recipe and 30 minutes later, I just put the pumpkin in. Then I got to thinking about all the recipes I like to cook this time of year. And I started thinking about all the recipes YOU like to cook this time of year. What are your favorite recipes that you like to cook this time of year?
I am going to list a few of mine here (with links) especially since I still have to try to fix my recipe page after WordPress BLOCKS came along. (Ugh!)
A Quick And Yummy Way To Use Cranberries (“salsa”)
Dancing With Persimmons (relish)
Awesome Salad (pear and walnut)
Butternut Squash Soup Adaptation
I have already made butternut squash soup and I am making the stuffed pumpkin tonight. The pumpkin came in our produce delivery. We also received persimmons so I am just waiting for them to be ready and I was hoping to get both the relish AND the chicken out of them. I am planning on having a version of the salad for Thanksgiving. I have to get my hubby to get me ingredients for pumpkin cookies. I should have had him do it the last shopping trip, but there was already too many other things he was getting. So next week. And then I hope to have Cheese Fondue for New Year’s Eve.
So, again . . . . what about you? What are the recipes you look forward to making this season?
Posted in Misc | Tagged: cheese fondue, cranberries, favorite fall dinners, favorite recipes of the season, heavy whipping cream, mushrooms, persimmons, pumpkin cookies, Sausage, Stuffed pumpkin, winter soup | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on November 12, 2018
As you may know, if you read my blog, we get an organic box of produce delivered. The service we use allows us to actually pick what comes in the box. It somewhat defeats my whole idea of getting a box delivered, but it is also nice. When I get the e-mail, sometimes I forget to log in and pick what I want in the allotted time so I end up getting what they send. I would not have gotten a sugar pie pumpkin two deliveries in a row, but, my fault, I didn’t stop it. I felt as if we had just had stuffed pumpkin so I didn’t want to do that again so I decided to make pumpkin soup. I looked up my post of Roast Pumpkin Soup and I read what I wrote, so I didn’t want to follow that recipe exactly. And since I was going to just make a few minor tweaks I didn’t think I would be posting about it. Well, my husband and I loved it so much I wanted to make sure I made note of it. I will not be using the other pumpkin soup recipe again. Although, this one is VERY similar, I liked the tweaks I made so this one is much better. It didn’t have any of the bitter that I spoke about with the last recipe.
But, as usual, I didn’t plan on posting about it, so I didn’t think to take a picture the night I made it. We had enough to eat on it for three days. So the pictures are of the leftovers.
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Roasted Pumpkin Soup 2.0
1 sugar pie pumpkin
Milanese Gremolata olive oil
garlic salt
2 large shallots
32 ounces chicken broth (Better Than Bouillon)
8 ounces of dry sherry (and then some, for splashing)
1 teaspoons salt (and then some, for sprinkling)
1/2 heaping teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 heaping teaspoon ginger
1 teaspoon marjoram (and then some, for sprinkling)
sprinkle of pepper
sprinkle of nutmeg
1 pint of heavy cream**
Preheat the oven to 450° F. Wash the pumpkin, then cut so that you can remove all the seeds. Then cut it into pieces. Rub the pumpkin pieces with olive oil and sprinkle both sides of each piece with garlic salt. Then place the pumpkin – skin side up – on a parchment paper lined baking pan. Bake it for 20 minutes. Take the pumpkin out of the oven – here is where you can salt it again if you would like. Turn each piece over and sprinkle with marjoram. Then bake it for about 30 minutes more. This is where you have to decide if it is done or if it needs more time in the oven. Use a fork, poking each piece to see it if is cooked to your liking. I like it to have the roasted flavor so I bake it until there are some browned spots.
While the pumpkin is roasting. Chop the shallots. Heat up some olive oil in your stock pot or soup pan. Then cook the shallots. Once the shallots are cooked, add the broth. Stir the broth and shallots. Then add the sherry. Stir the broth and sherry. While stirring add the salt and all of the spices. Bring it to a low boil.
When the pumpkin is done roasting put it in your super blender (or perhaps you have an immersion blender*) with a splash of sherry and blend it until you have a pumpkin puree. (I used the “soup” setting on my blender.)
When you have the pumpkin puree add it to the liquid in the soup pot. Stir the mixture until the puree and the liquid are incorporated. Then add the cream. Stir until the cream is incorporated into the soup. Bring it a low boil. Then serve.
*with the immersion blender add the pumpkin to the liquid then blend until smooth
**I actually used 1/2 a pint
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This was really good.
I am including the Milanese Gremolata olive oil as an ingredient because we just bought this magical elixir from Napa and I love it and I am using it in everything. I do think that it really helped elevate the flavor of the soup. But, regular olive oil will work, too.
The first two night we had this with some Pugliese bread from the store. It was very good dipped into the soup. The third night I made beer bread adding, a teaspoon of garlic salt, a teaspoon of garlic, and two teaspoons of marjoram. It paired REALLY well with the soup.
My husband is already pestering me to make this again! I better do it at least one more time before the sugar pie pumpkins are all gone!
Well, now I have two pumpkin soup recipes you can make. Which one will you make?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: Beer bread adding, better than bouillon, chicken broth, heavy cream, marjoram, Milanese Gremolata olive oil, organic box of produce, Pugliese bread, pumpkin soup, shallots, Stuffed pumpkin, sugar pie pumpkin | Leave a Comment »
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 November 1, 2014
It is winter time, although with the way the weather has been behaving the past few years I am not sure that nature knows how to respond. Animals and plants do not have clocks and calendars, they react to their internal clocks and the way the weather is. If it is warm they might not realize winter is on the way and they need to prepare. If there is no water they might not be able to prepare. If their homes or hunting grounds are being torn up because buildings or houses are being built they might even be at more of a loss. But there are still a few fruits and veggies we might see during the winter. Perhaps not all of nature is confused. One is the delicata squash I recently mentioned. A friend was over asking if we ate the skin. She also mentioned winter squash and while I had heard the term before I never really paid attention. It used to be in the same category to me as how things are classified. I never paid attention to what is a winter squash and what is a summer squash. I just buy what is in the store. I have been receiving winter veggies and fruits in my delivery. Perhaps more accurately described as fall fruits and veggies. I have pomegranates, persimmons, and pears. We have received chard, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, and delicata squash. What do you do with that stuff?
You know me. If you have read one, you’ve read them all . . . I roast it. Roasting is so easy. It is easy, tasty, and time efficient. Time really is the main reason why I love roasting. Cut it up, oil it, garlic it, salt it and put it in the oven, then go do whatever it is you still need to do. So easy. But I can’t do that for everything. Ok, with the squash I get “fancy”, I roast it THEN I stuff it, but c’mon . . . there has got to be other ways.
Tonight I made a stuffed pumpkin. I didn’t have any ricotta so I used the Neufchâtel cheese I had left over from the chicken dish I made – documented in my post Leftover Rainbow Chard To The Rescue. I think it might have even made it better. I’m not sure. I just didn’t want to buy a container of ricotta just for 2 ounces. So I just decided to use the Neufchâtel since I had bought 8 ounces of it and only used 2 ounces. It was fine.
I do want to roast a pumpkin to make soup out of it, but what else do you do with all of these wonderful winter vegetables. I have never gotten beyond my Fancy Toast when it comes to persimmons and I have about seven sitting on my counter right now. What do you do with persimmons? Can they be uses in a “salsa” or a chutney?
Can you use delicata squach for soup? I also received some baby bok choy. Read any of my posts? If so, you know I LOOOOOOOVE baby bok choy. It can be cooked and eaten by itself or added to just about anything. YUM!!!!
I am just thinking you might have ideas that you could share. Some tried and true, some favorite recipes that you might want to share. I asked last year and I received a SPECTACULAR recipe I am going to share soon. It is easy and yummy and one of those things you make that you just want to put on/in everything because it is so good. You can eat it by itself.
So . . . what have you got? What do you do with all of or any of this wonder winter produce we have?
Posted in Food | Tagged: baby bok choy, chutney, Dinner of Herbs, Fancy toast, Neufchatel cheese, pumpkin, rainbow chard, ricotta cheese, Salsa, Stuffed pumpkin, winter fruit, winter produce, winter vegetables, winter veggies, yummy recipe | Leave a Comment »
Posted by terrepruitt on October 21, 2014
A few weeks ago I received an acorn squash in the produce box. You know me, I would have just chopped it up and roasted it. But I decided to roast it and stuff it. Just like the pumpkin. I had a friend visit the day I received it and when I told her that I was going to stuff it she asked me, “So you just eat the inside?” Nope. Once you roast it, the outside . . . the skin, cooks up to a tender edible state. So we just eat it. We did the same thing with the pumpkin. It is actually difficult to believe until you do it. Of course, once you cook it you can always opt NOT to eat the skin, but why not? It becomes really tender. So anyway, I used the same recipe as the stuffed pumpkin, so this post is kind of a repeat. The sugar pumpkin was much larger than the acorn squash. I wasn’t really sure how much of the mixture from the original recipe I was going to be able to use. So I cut the recipe in half . . . sort of.
I used the original amount of mushrooms and sausage. I wasn’t sure how it would cook up. So I just went with what I knew (seven mushrooms and 1/4 pound of sausage). At the point when the sausage and mushrooms were done cooking and mixed together, that is when I decided I only needed half of it. So half of it went into the fridge for another meal before I added any of the other ingredients. But I used the same amount of herbs . . . a little less cream and one less piece of bread. The recipe below is the ADJUSTED one.
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Stuffed Acorn Squash
1 1 pound Acorn Squash
some olive oil
salt
three mushrooms, thinly sliced
1/4 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic (minced)
1/8 pound sausage
1/2 tsp rosemary
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 cup cheese (small chunks)
2 tbsp ricotta
1 tbsp sherry
less than 1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
handful of spinach
three slices bread – toasted and cubed
Wash the squash since you are planning on eating the entire thing! Cut the acorn squash in half. Scoop out the seeds. Rub a little oil in the acorn squash and on the outside, salt inside and out, then place the halves – cut side down – on some aluminum foil on a baking sheet. Bake at 350° F for 45 minutes (check it after 20 minutes to see if you want to flip it over or not – up to you. It depends on how cooked the edges are getting.) After the 45 minutes you want it to be cooked, but not cooked so much it can’t stand another 45 minutes to an hour in the oven).
Heat some olive oil in a pan with 1/2 of the chopped onion. 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 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. Pour a small amount of cream into each acorn half. Then use more cream to moisten the rest of the ingredients. As the list of ingredients state I used less than 1/4 cup. I did not use the full 1/4 cup. Add the spinach and bread cubes last. Mix it all carefully.
Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin. I used the spoon to press the mixture down into each half. I really pressed the ingredients in because I wanted it all to fit. Then on my half I put most of the left-over-from-the-handful of spinach.
Put the squash in the oven for 45 minutes. After about 20 minutes check on it. The squash is done when you can gently pierce its side with a sharp object. Check to verify the inside is cooked to your liking. Since the mushrooms and the sausage are already cooked it is just a matter of it heating up, melting the cheese, and letting all the flavors blend.
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I served it with a green salad. But we have salad pretty much every night.
This was good. I liked it. It was not as good as the Sugar Pumpkin, though. My husband said it was as good, but I don’t think so. I think the sugar pumpkin had a better flavor. The pumpkin itself added to the dish. The acorn squash tasted like squash. Which is fine, I like squash, but it didn’t help kick this dish out of the park!
As I said, this is exactly like the stuffed pumpkin except it is an acorn squash. But I did want to document the adjustments. 🙂
I am learning a lot of people don’t like winter squash. Do you? What type of winter squash do you like? Have you ever cooked with a sugar pumpkin (besides making a pie)?
Posted in "Recipes", Food | Tagged: acorn squash, baked dinner, dinner, fall dinner, heavy cream, mushrooms and sausage, organic produce box, roasted squash, Stuffed pumpkin, stuffed squash, winter dinner | 2 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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