The Pumpkin Life

Happy Halloween!

Recipe of the day:  Appropriately fall.  This is a recipe I made for a house-warming party for my soon-to-be in-laws a couple weeks ago and it was quite a hit!  After all, who doesn't like to eat out of a pumpkin??

Props go to Ginger Snap Crafts for this great idea!  That link takes you straight to the recipe, so I will just add my pictures with explanations on how I changed it up.  The comments of people who had tried the recipe said it was a bit bland, so I added a couple of extra spices to jazz it up....yummy!

Turkey, corn, green beans, and rice mixture

This is the mixture of spiced ground turkey (instead of sausage...we have red meat allergies in the family) with the frozen veggies.  I want to make this again and really experiment with different veggies!  I added a little bit of nutmeg to the meat as it was cooking since there was nutmeg added to the inside of the pumpkin; it tasted great!  I also added quite a bit more pepper than the recipe called for.  I tried to keep it as simple as possible since kids were eating, but I think the use of more herbs would be even better!  We actually served it with a pumpkin soup piled on top, so we were not lacking in any flavor :)

This is the inside of the pumpkin after it has been scooped out and the salt, pepper, and nutmeg added.  I'm not sure why it looks like the remains of someone's sneeze, but I assure you it was all spices!

After the mixture was added :)

This is the part in the recipe that I felt could have used a little more explanation: the steam tent.  In order to get the water for the steam tent I filled the cookie sheet about halfway with water and then put another cookie sheet opposite way with the pumpkin on it so the pumpkin didn't get soggy.  I don't know if that's the way to go, but its the only way I could think of!  Hope the picture is clear enough.

And this is the pumpkin all wrapped up and ready to be baked!  Full disclosure: I picked too large of a pumpkin for my oven so I couldn't fit whole contraption in.  After spilling the water everywhere and slightly panicking for 5.2 seconds I realized I could just take the lid of the pumpkin since the foil would keep the steam in regardless (and no one was going to eat the lid anyway).  Crisis averted!  

I realized after the dinner that it might have been kind of funny to cut a hole in the side of the pumpkin that looked like a mouth and then drawn some eyes as well- it would have looked like it was puking haha!  Maybe not the most appetizing, but it would definitely be appropriate for Halloween :)  

No good?