Dinner in a Pumpkin

I got this great idea from a friend and then I did some research on Pinterest to make a dinner in a pumpkin. We don't do a whole lot for Halloween, but I like to do a few fun festive things and this is going to become and annual October dinner. My family loved it and so did I. Garrett ate almost all his dinner without complaining. He loved that his serving dish was a tiny sugar pumpkin. I got part of my recipe here. I also got this recipe from my friend Sarah ~

Ingredients:

1 pumpkin (3-4 lbs. though I regularly 1.5 or double this recipe)

2 T. butter or margarine, melted

salad oil

Cut a three inch circle around stem of pumpkin, remove seeds and pulp.  Brush inside of pumpkin with butter.  Brush outside of pumpkin with salad oil.  Bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

1 lb. lean ground beef

1/2 cup chopped celery

1/2 cup chopped onion

1/4 cup diced green pepper

3/4 t. salt

2 cups cooked rice

2 cans (10.5 oz each cream of chicken soup)

1 can (4 oz.) sliced mushrooms, drained

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 t. packed brown sugar

Cook beef in large skillet until brown.  Stir in vegetables and salt.  Simmer over low flame for 10 min.  Remove from flame and add remaining ingredients.  Spoon mixture into pumpkin and place in center of greased baking sheet, replace pumpkin top.  Bake in oven at 375 degrees for about 1 hour, until pumpkin is tender.  Makes 6-8 servings.  When serving, scrape off inside of pumpkin if desire.

I used both recipes to get our final product. You should try this with your family next year.