Pumpkin [comma] Stuffed

I had a little culinary triumph tonight--well, besides it being ready way too late for EE to eat it so I had to feed her green beans and beef ravioli--so I thought I'd share. It's a super flexible, throw in what you want recipe. NPR, despite its blatant liberalism, is a welcome bastion of civilization on our radio here, which otherwise only spews inane pop, repetitive country, and frightening talk shows. This chef was on NPR on Saturday morning; the real recipe is called Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good but I decided to put a military spin on mine. (You know, like fasteners [comma] hook-and-loop, meals [comma] ready-to-eat, et cetera.). I was already traipsing on down the road to check out the Japanese produce store, so I picked up this half-a-pumpkin in there. The original recipe calls for a whole pumpkin, but this way all the hard work was done for me!

I'm sure that anyone who knows about cooking will tell me from that picture that my pumpkin was horribly overcooked. I left it in for a really long time. Or maybe it wasn't overcooked, I wouldn't know. All I know is that it tasted great.

I'll let you read her recipe for the real deal, but what I put into mine was:

salt & pepper in the pumpkin

mixed together, then stuffed:

toasted sourdough bread, cut into small chunks

mozzarella cheese, cut into similar small chunks

~1/2 tsp garlic [comma] minced (from a jar)

a dash of thyme (dried, I mean plucked from my hydroponic herb garden)

poured into the pumpkin after it was stuffed until stuffing was moist:

heavy cream with nutmeg, salt, & pepper mixed in

I cooked it in that Corningware dish in the picture and covered the top of the pumpkin loosely with a piece of tin foil, since in her recipe you put the lid on the pumpkin for eating. I never took off the foil (like she did with the lid) because I thought it would dry out too much. After somewhere around 2 hours at 350 degrees, I dug in. Just scoop out some pumpkin along with some stuffing. It's pretty mushy, so beware if you have a thing about textures.

Hope you enjoy this somewhat more unique use for all those pumpkins in the stores right now!