DINNER-IN-A-PUMPKIN

[PattyInAK]

SAVORY STUFFED PUMPKIN
1.5 lbs. ground beef
I medium onion, chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
1 4oz. can sliced mushrooms
3 tablespoons soy sauce
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1-1/2 cups cooked rice
1 8-oz. can sliced water chestnuts, drained
1 large pumpkin (8-9 pounds)*
Vegetable oil

In a skillet over medium heat, cook ground beef and onion
until meat is no longer pink. Drain well.
Add soup, mushrooms, soy sauce and brown sugar.
Simmer, uncovered, for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Stir in the rice and water chestnuts.
Wash pumpkin. Cut a 6 inch circle around stem.
Remove top and set aside. Discard seeds and loose fibers from the inside.
Spoon beef mixture into pumpkin and replace top.
Place on a greased 15"x10"x1" baking pan. Rub oil over outside of pumpkin.
Bake, uncovered at 350F for 1-1/2 hours or until pumpkin is tender.
Scoop out some pumpkin with each serving of the beef mixture.
Freshly baked bread and raw veggies go well with this.
Yield: about 6 servings.
Leftovers are great the next day.


* Make sure the pumpkin will fit in your oven!

[Dee Dee and Hallie]

THANK YOU!! That sounds so good. My friend is a good cook and we'll be using her kitchen so it should go well.  :thumb:

[PattyInAK]

Be sure to let me know how it turns out.  I bought a small 4-pounder pumpkin for Dan and me, we'll be having this.........hey, maybe tomorrow!  Its Halloween!

[Dee Dee and Hallie]

Yes it would make a great Halloween dinner wouldn't it. I will let you know how we do with it too, not sure what day we can get together yet. Thanks again for sharing Patty! Wish Hallie and I could come have dinner with you and Dan and the boys, I'm sure no one can make it quite like you do!

[Teresa]

Dee Dee, Does your friend know your reputation in the kitchen? Just wondering....

I'm sure you will have fun and it will be a great thing to do after your last week of worrying. Let us know how it turns out.

[jillkilleen]

wow, I thin I may surprise my hubby and do this tomorrow!

[Dee Dee and Hallie]

LOL Teresa yes Trish and I have been friends for 20 years. (wow!). So she knows my kitchen challenges very well.  I have been wanting to try Patty's recipe for years now but fall seems to pass by too fast.

Doesn't it sound good Jill? Let us know if you try it too.

[PattyInAK]

Dan and I had our dinner in a pumpkin tonight, and it was great.  Dan wants the leftovers for lunch tomorrow.  If any of you try it, let me know what you think. 
By the way, we didn't get a single trick or treater tonight.  And then my friend cancelled on me for going to the holiday craft bazaar tomorrow, and I don't want to go alone, and Dan has to work.  Then my PT called me and said the pool therapist has jury duty and I won't be able to start pool therapy on Monday, so i am majorly BUMMED OUT TONIGHT.  But Willy and Alex are all snuggled in the bed and I will join them soon.  Sometimes I feel like I have no one except for my two boys.  We'll try to get out for a walk or do something special tomorrow........maybe even a bonfire in the back yard.   

[Dee Dee and Hallie]

I'll bet it's good as left overs too! We were going to try it last night at Trish's farm but my stressful "Hallie week" messed my stomach up again (it was JUST starting to show improvement when this happened) and I still can't eat anything solid, I can only get down juices and ensure (yugh) and I didn't want to sit there and watch everyone else eat "my" pumpkin I've been waiting years to try. So that is going to be my celebration dinner when I can eat again. Trish has a bunch of pumpkins in her patch and they also roast the seeds which is really good. When you store the leftovers do you scoop it all out of the pumpkin and put it in a container in the fridge or do you just leave it in the whole pumpkin, and how do you reheat it up?

That's odd about the trick or treaters for the first time in the over 20 years I've lived here, we didn't get one either. It was wierd, I was upstairs in my studio painting and Hallie was in her crate where it sits on a cabinet so she can look out the window and we didn't see one trick or treater walking down the road, we always have dozens! Very strange. I like seeing the costumes.

That sucks about your plans. As you said though you have the boys and it is so seldom in life we have our loved ones healthy and with us, I'm sure the snuggle time you had with them raised your spirits a lot! 

[PattyInAK]

I scoop everything out of the pumpkin and put in another container for leftovers.  It can be reheated in the microwave. 
I'm glad I grew up in a time and place where Halloween was fun.  Our neighborhood was full of kids and the whole neighborhood was swarming with kids on Halloween.  We had a blast.

I can totally relate to the stomach/eating problems.  I am so worried and nervous about what Social Security is going to decide about early retirement, and how long Aetna will pay disability, and when we will finally sell one of our lots so I can pay off our bills, etc........so my nervous stomach is "normal" these days.  Sometimes it takes until noon before I can eat.  I was drinking a lot of SlimFast and I am about sick and tired of that stuff.  Like you, I am alone a lot, and then my brain work overtime on my worries.

[Dee Dee and Hallie]

Wow, look at me I guessed right at a cooking task...scooping out the pumpkin and putting it in a container! LOL. Thanks Patty. I agree about Halloween we had a ball too as a kid, no worries about razor blades or drugs either. One year I rode my horse door to door.

I think we're all wired to worry or not to, people will tell you just to stop worrying but there is no way you can just stop. I guess since I've lost so many, my buttons are health and losing them so I go overboard when someone I'm close to is sick. But I don't worry about anything else, work, finances, car problems...I have plenty of reasons to worry about those things but I don't. I am just so happy when Hallie is doing well, nothing else matters and when she's not, nothing else still doesn't matter! (there's some grammar for you! :)). Hopefully you will get some answers to your worries soon.

[PattyInAK]

Dee, of course when someone has lost so many loved ones, they are going to be gun-shy.  Gosh, I think Maria is there, and you.  Its awful, and there is no way to make it easier.  But I truly believe that we will be united with our loved ones, human and otherwise, when we die.  I do know where you are at, that if something happened to Hallie that it would crush you, I really do understand that.  She is your life, and your little daughter, just like Jessie was and still is.  Lets just hope that both of us can be strong.
When I would bring up worries to my mom this past summer, she would say "lets not dwell on it", well HELLO, I have to "dwell" on it because I have to know how I am going to pay my bills.  I told her that I NEED to talk about it, to get it out.  Thankfully my sister from Homer was around and let me vent as much as I wanted to, and my mom did too, once she came around.  But your are right, some of us worry, and others can just blow it off, I cannot do that, because I have Dan, and my pets and my home to think about.  AAArrrggghhh!!!!!!