Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Stuffed Pumpkin!

Here’s the pumpkin dish I promised you a few days ago. I found it on this site called the Prudent Baby, and while I don’t think mine is nearly as delightful as hers, I am pretty pleased with how it turned out!

I started by cutting the top off the pumpkin and scooping its innards out. First of all, scooping the innards out of a sugar pumpkin is hard. They are little and the stringy stuff is much more stubborn. After much trial and tribulation, I had mine as cleaned out as it was going to get. While scooping out the pumpkin, I toasted some bread because while mine was day-old Weaver Street bread, I don’t think it was quite stale. Oh, and I soaked the stem so it wouldn’t burn.

After the pumpkin was cleaned out and the bread was toasted, I sprinkled some salt and pepper inside and started stuffing the pumpkin in layers of cheese and garlic followed by bread. I used mostly goat cheese, but through in a layer of bleu cheese for a little extra oomph. And I tried to stuff it really full per PB’s instructions.

That shit on the left is cream with nutmeg and white pepper,which comes into play in a second. Can you tell I’m all over the place with this post? No shots of a really full pumpkin before the addition of cream, no shots of pumpkin carnage, nothing. Sorry, folks.

After the whole pumpkin was stuffed to the gills with cheese, bread, and garlic, I poured the cream over it all.

Mmm. Cheesy creamy pumpkiny goodness.

Then I popped that sucker on a pie plate covered in tin foil and threw it into the oven for an hour and twenty minutes at 375 degrees.

Then my house started to smell like heaven, of course, and I had to satiate myself eating the three leftover cubes of bread that I’d toasted and hadn’t been able to fit in the pumpkin. Not so cool. After it cooked for that first little bit, I took the pumpkin’s lid off and let it cook for about twenty more minutes.

And here is the finished product!

I think that I could have done a few things differently – I think I should have toasted the bread a little bit longer; used less cream; and let the pumpkin bake initially a little bit longer. Or at least two of those things – I just think the bread was a little too soft. But all in all it was delicious – and the pumpkin peeled away from the skin so easily!

This is one of those meals that really make me realize that meat is just not a necessity for feeling full after eating. It was a little too rich, I think, with the cheese and thick bread and pumpkin flesh – but quite delicious, and a good cold-night meal.

And here’s what I’m drinking in honor of my darling pookie Gypsy, who no longer has to wear that beastly e-collar.

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