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| The baked/stuffed pumpkin |
On a long rainy Saturday, when I had planned on making pasta with tomato sauce for dinner, Caroline came into the kitchen with her laptop and a recipe recommendation for a baked/stuffed pumpkin from her mom. (I am working backwards a little bit, as this was before Thanksgiving and I was getting into a autumn mood). It sounded great, but needed some tweaking as it was not a vegetarian recipe. We immediately started to brainstorm about what we could fill the pumpkin with. Roasted vegetables, cheese, lasagna noodles, pine nuts, potatoes; we were really getting into it. We decided on garlic breadcrumbs (like the recipe called for), roasted butternut squash, sauteed onion, chard, carrots and celery, wild rice with black beans, and layers of mozzarella, Parmesan, and Gruyere cheese, with creme fraiche, and herbs.
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While this recipe certainly takes a while, it is well worth the wait. First, the pumpkin needs to be cleaned and the guts need to be removed (I really hate this part, it feels like pulling hair out of a drain, but it's worth it), we saved the seeds and roasted them which was a nice snack while we waited for the pumpkin. The first layer was the wild rice with the black beans. Next we laid down the sauteed garlic, onion, carrots, celery, butternut squash, and swiss chard. Then we added the breadcrumbs with garlic. In between each layer, we added creme fraiche in addition to Gruyere, mozzarella, and Parmesan cheese as well as salt and pepper, sage, thyme, cinnamon, and nutmeg. After all of the layers are put into the pumpkin, it needs to bake for two hours. The smells pouring from the oven are like the songs of the sirens to Odysseus; it is almost impossible not to pull it out of the oven and start devouring it. Again, luckily we had those roasted pumpkin seeds.
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Once the pumpkin was finally ready, we were so excited and could not wait to scoop it out. It was delicious, savory, warm, spicy and complex, everything we hoped for and more. I knew that this dish would be a wonderful vegetarian addition to the Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house, so I emailed my mom the next day telling her all about it. I ended up making the stuffed/baked pumpkin for Thanksgiving and it was a hit! I believe this will be a new addition to the standard Thanksgiving traditions.
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Stuffed Baked Pumpkin
Adapted from NPR
by Caroline Carpenter, Jake J Thomas, and Kaitlin Fasse
1 or 2 sugar pie pumpkins, cleaned and gutted (save the lid)
1 cup wild rice
1 can of black beans
1 onion, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
garlic, to taste
small bunch of Swiss chard
1 packaged of pre-cut butternut squash
4-5 pieces of stale bread, cut into squares and toasted with garlic
Creme Fraiche
Grated Mozzarella, Gruyere, Parmesan
minced thyme and sage
salt and pepper
nutmeg, cinnamon (or cinnamon sticks)
butter.
1. Preheat the oven to 350 with the rack on the lower third. Wash and clean the pumpkin, remove strings and seeds. Rub butter on the inside of the pumpkin and lid and salt and pepper generously. Place on a baking sheet or pan and set aside.
2. Cook the rice, following package directions and combine with one can of beans.
3. Saute the onions, carrots, celery, chard and garlic.
4. Toast the breadcrumbs with garlic for a few minutes in a pyrex baking dish.
5. Set the pumpkin on the baking sheet and begin to assemble. Start with the rice and beans, add the onions, carrots, celery, chard, butternut squash, and garlic, then the breadcrumbs. In between each layer, add the cheese, creme fraiche, herbs and salt and pepper.
6. Finish with a layer of cheese, place the lid back on the pumpkin and bake for about 2 hours, checking on it occasionally. If desired, remove the lid to brown the cheese on the top.
7. Carefully remove the pumpkin from the oven. You can either scoop out of it, or cut it into slices like a pie.
Enjoy
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