French Friday with Dorie: Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

PUMPKIN STUFFED WITH A CHEESY BREAD FILLING

MY SLICE

My pumpkin is baking.  I can smell the bacon and spices and it’s aroma is delicious.  I’ll take this time to write up my post as the baking time is about 2 hours.

"HALLOWEEN" PUMPKIN VS PIE PUMPKIN

I had first thought to use a small, sweet, non-stringy pie pumpkin, but decided that it would not provide a cavity large enough for very much of the cheesy-bread filling that would season the pumpkin and add so much to this dish.  With this in mind, I opted for a small, but much-larger- than-pie-pumpkin, a field pumpkin...or Halloween pumpkin.

I decided to roast my smaller, sweeter pie pumpkins along with today’s pumpkin and use them for their intent...pie.

ALL CLEANED AND SEEDS SAVED

I’ve always liked squashes, especially with sweet toppings like butter and brown sugar or maple syrup, but pumpkin is quite bland, so I’ve never given it the same use.

I NEED TO TRIPLE THE RECIPE TO FILL THIS "SMALL" PUMPKIN

When we had a huge garden while living in Upstate New York, we grew a few varieties of pumpkin.  I remember cleaning some similar to the pumpkin being used today, and  filling their insides with a stew-like mixture which was delicious. 

THE FILLING IS READY

But I’ve never used a filling similar to Dorie’s cheesy bread filling.  I admit I’m skeptical.  The filling looks and smells great, but that pumpkin was just begging to become a Jack-O-Lantern.  At this point, I’m more excited about making my pie from fresh sweet pumpkin.

ALL STUFFED...

AND OVEN READY

Part 2

OK...I learned something today.  This pumpkin is delicious!  The stuffing flavors, which were very tasty, permeated the pumpkin flesh, and the pumpkin, which I purchased from Trader Joe’s was not stringy or flat tasting as I had expected it would be...in fact, not stringy at all.

JUST OUT OF THE OVEN

When Hubby and No.1 Son tasted the stuffing they both commented that they thought it had a lot of meat and asked what was in the stuffing (they thought it was stuffed with something like meatloaf).  Well, just some bacon...I used a pound for my pumpkin (probably cooked down to 1/2 pound).  I found that I had to 3X the recipe to fill my pumpkin which I thought was relatively small.

I used a good whole grain bread and switched out the cheese for a spicy pepper jack, a good melting cheese, as I wanted more flavor with all the bread and cream.  It worked well.  I baked this stuffed pumpkin for two hours.  (The pie pumpkins were done in 1 hour.)

Note:  There was plenty of oven space to bake Dorie's pumpkin and  two pie pumpkins...the first hour.

And, then there was room to bake two pies with Dorie's pumpkin during the second hour.

 I'm feeling energy efficient.

By grabbing 2 sides of my silicone baking sheet I easily lifted the pumpkin, which stayed whole, from the baking pan.

And I must admit that I’m thinking of this dish as a new Thanksgiving dinner vegetable.  It would grace our table beautifully and we always like to try something different each year. It would be perfectly seasonal.  This baked pumpkin is pretty when sliced and would not compete with pumpkin pie which is sweet and with different spices.

Just for fun, I saved all my seeds for roasting, and I’ll let my kiddies try them next time they come....maybe tomorrow.

A SLICE OF DORIE'S STUFFED PUMPKIN AND A SLICE OF FRESH APPLE PIE...AND I'M GOOD

I know, you all thought I was baking pumpkin pies...well,  I'll bake the fresh pumpkin pies tomorrow after my little pumpkins have cooled and that filling has been prepared.  What's a day without pumpkin during the week before Halloween?


Happy Halloween to all my cyberfriends...have a very fun and safe holiday!!!