Dinner-in-a-Pumpkin

By Lynne Baumheckel

By Lynne Baumheckel

For the turkey overload try a pumpkin treat

1 – 8 to 10 pound pumpkin

(make sure it is not too big for your oven)

1-1/2 pound of ground beef

1 small onion chopped

2 sticks of celery chopped

1-1/2 t. sugar

1-1/2 t. mixed Italian herbs

1-1/2 t. salt

1/8 t. pepper

4 cups V8 tomato juice

½ small cabbage (optional)

Frozen 16 oz. packages of:

¼ bag peas

¼ bag corn

¼ bag green beans

1 can kidney beans drained

1 cup uncooked minute rice

Wash pumpkin with cold water, scrape seeds and stringy part of pumpkin and discard. (You can save the seeds. Rinse seeds, dry with paper towel, spread out on cookie sheet, sprinkle a little salt and bake in oven for 2 hours at 250 degrees. Fun to snack on.) Cut off top of pumpkin, this is its lid. Set pumpkin in a metal pan with a 2 inch edge. Add about 1-1/2 inches of water. If you use a foil pan you’ll need to put a cookie sheet under it. The pumpkin will get very heavy to lift after the ingredients are added.

Cook ground beef and drain off fat, add onion, celery and sauté slightly. Put into large bowl and add the rest of the ingredients. Mix together and put into pumpkin. Put lid on top and bake for 3 hours at 375 degrees. Check the water level in the pan. It should have water in it at all times. Pumpkin is done when it is soft when pierced with a fork. When done it has a brown shriveled up look. Carefully lift out of oven and drain water with a turkey baster and put on serving platter. As you serve each portion you can scrape the wall of the pumpkin to add pumpkin squash to each serving. Serve with any kind of salad and corn bread or rolls. Serves 6 to 8 people.

Enjoy!