Act 6; Scene 5: Dinner in a Pumpkin

I have been wanting to try this particular dinner idea for a long time.

And since we've been doing so many garden fresh dishes, it seemed perfect to use a pumpkin from our garden! It was the perfect size for our little dinner.

First, you have to cook the pumpkin in the oven for an hour. I brushed it with olive oil and sprinkled some salt, pepper, and garlic powder inside. 

The filling mixture was made of:

1 medium onion

2 big stalks of celery

1 red bell pepper

 3 cloves garlic

(saute all of this in olive oil for about 5 minutes or so before adding the rest)

1 can stewed or rotel tomatoes (though I did 3 fresh tomatoes from the garden)

1 8 oz can water chestnuts

2 Tbsp soy sauce

2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

2 cups (or more!) cooked, cubed chicken 

salt, pepper, and garlic powder (dashes)

(at this point let all the ingredients simmer about 5 minutes)

 then add

2 cups (I did about 3) cooked rice

Here's the pumpkin after being cooked for an hour, and the filling about to go in!

Put the pumpkin with filling and top in for about another hour, depending on pumpkin size. Just poke it with a fork to see if it's soft. But be careful not too cook it too long, or the pumpkin might collapse!

Doesn't this finished product look so lovely?! 

Scoop out some pumpkin along with the inside mixture. So yummy!

 

Meal of packed pumpkin, spinach salad, apple slices, and artisan bread.

The dinner in a pumpkin was so much better than I expected! I thought it might be "interesting" tasting, if you know what I mean...but the pumpkin blended perfectly! And it was amazingly delicious, and packed with healthy foods!

Keeping with the pumpkin trend, we had pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting for dessert.

 

Dinner guests of honor!

 

 And the worn-out chef. This picture is funny because I have a lazy/twitchy eye! Sort of how I feel after making a big meal like this! Ha! But you can see I licked my platter clean (disregard Scarlet's half-chewed apple slice resting on my plate...)

And of course, our Halloween costume HINT!!

Costume Hint #3: Today we made part of Tommy's costume, and there is faux fur everywhere!

Any guesses?!?!?

Happy Haunting!