Easy Dinner in a Pumpkin- Halloween & Fall Recipe

We love fall recipes. They are so warming and bring a lot of comfort on dark days! The smell fall baking and cooking brings is half of the warmth, don't you agree? I love to use my oven in the fall and winter! I hope you enjoy this fall recipe for dinner in a pumpkin. It is one of my favorite fall and winter pumpkin recipes.

This is a really easy recipe. The best thing for you to know is that you can take most rice or potato dishes and add it to a cooked pumpkin and make this dish.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

Ingredients:

10-12-inch Pumpkin

2 cups of of cooked rice or a mixture of vermicelli and rice

1 large onion, chopped

3 stalks of celery, chopped

1 red pepper, chopped

4 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 lbs. chicken, chopped in bite size pieces

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 can stewed tomatoes or Rotel tomatoes

2 tablespoons soy sauce

2 tablespoons brown sugar, packed

4-oz sliced mushrooms, drained

8-oz can sliced water chestnuts, drained

Salt, Pepper, Garlic Powder

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Remove top of pumpkin and set aside; hollow out, discarding everything but the pulp. 

3. Decorate with permanent markers, if desired. You could write the name of the dish, draw a pumpkin face, etc. 

4. Take 1 tablespoon of oil and lightly oil the inside of the pumpkin. 

5. Sprinkle around the salt, pepper and garlic powder.

6. Put the pumpkin and top in a baking dish and then on a baking sheet and cook for 1 hour in the oven.

While pumpkin is baking put together the rice mixture.

1. With 1 tablespoon of oil, saute onion, celery and garlic for 5 minutes.

2. Add in red pepper, mushrooms and chicken. Cook until chicken is no longer pink (about 5 minutes.)

3. Add in tomatoes, soy sauce, sugar, water chestnuts and seasoning to taste. 

4. Once combined, let simmer for 5 minutes and add in cooked rice. 

5. Turn off heat. Add mixture to pumpkin that has cooked for 1 hour.

6. Add the top to the pumpkin and put back in oven. Cook for 1 more hour.

7. Cooking time varies by size of pumpkin but a 10-12 inch pumpkin should only take 2 hours total to cook. After the 2nd hour, the pumpkin should be soft to touch. Don't overcook or the pumpkin may collapse.

8. To serve put it on a fun platter. Scoop out the food on a plate making sure you are getting pumpkin with the rice mixture. You can also slice the pumpkin and include rice on top of each slice. 

9. Serves 6-8. It is so tasty and a great way to get pumpkin in the diet.  

10. This dish provided a lot of liquid. We used it to add on top of our food.

*THIS can be made with any of your favorite rice or potato mixtures.  I found it best to precook the pumpkin and the inside filling. This smelled so good cooking. I can't wait for it to get cooler out so that I can make it again.

The vegetables that I used can also be substituted for any of your favorites. 

Check HERE for more Pumpkin, Fall & Halloween Recipes! Get new ones and add yours, too!

Need a fun pumpkin decoration? Check out my cute Ms. Pumpkin Home Decor that is being featured on Bowdabra. Thanks!

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