Dinner in a Pumpkin

For as long as I can remember, my mom has made chili on Halloween. Since I have never really cared for beans I always ate my dinner begrudgingly and have even made chili for Halloween dinner since I couldn’t come up with anything that seemed to scream Halloween more… until this year. This savory meal is stuffed inside a pumpkin for its two hour baking time, what could be more Halloween than that?

 You will need:
a pumpkin, medium sized and squatty enough to fit in your oven
salt and pepper
half a loaf of bread, (You can either use stale bread or lightly toast the bread in the oven for five minutes)
1/2 pound of cheddar cheese cut into cubes
4 garlic cloves chopped
12 strips of bacon fried until crispy and chopped into small pieces
1/4 C. green onions
1 tablespoon thyme
1/2 C. heavy cream
pinch of nutmeg

First carve out your pumpkin. Scrape the sides of the pumpkin until there are no strings or seeds left. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper. Combine the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, green onion and thyme in a bowl and then add to the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be pretty full. Combine the cream and the nutmeg and pour into the pumpkin. The contents should be damp but not floating in cream.

Place the cap back on the pumpkin and place on a foil lined cookie sheet. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 2 hours but check on it after a hour and a half. Cook until the insides are bubbly and pumpkin is soft. You can remove the cap for the last 20 minutes of making to make the inside a little more cripsy if you want.

Carefully remove the pumpkin from the oven. You can either scoop out the innards of the pumpkin or slice it and serve the pumpkin with it. I liked having the pumpkin slice on my plate so I could take bites here and there of it.

Although this pumpkin dinner was good, I fully intend on making it with sausage and potatoes next time instead of bread because let’s face it, the more meat that is in a pumpkin, the more my husband will like it.

This post is a part of the Month O’ Pumpkin series at Housewife Eclectic. You can read the rest of the crafts, recipes and photography ideas in this series here.