Pumpkin Week: Dinner in a Pumpkin

When you're married to someone in the military, you learn lots of stuff. You learn nothing is ever set in stone until it's already happened. You learn to hurry up and then wait. You learn a whole lotta TLA's and FLA's (that's three letter acronyms and four/five letter acronyms). You learn ranks and other military things. But one of the most important things you learn is that friends can be just like family.

It's an important lesson when you're over 2000 miles from home and your close family members. So you take your friendly family (family friends?) and make the best of being far from home. You make new traditions. Like going to the pumpkin patch when it's 80º outside. Here's a few pictures from the pumpkin patch before you get your next pumpkin recipe!

Clockwise from top left: Some of the best people I know out here and the group that came with us to the pumpkin patch (look closely-the lady tried to crop Stout out from the bottom). Stout feeding goats at the pumpkin farm. The guys get a little crazy when thy are all together-plus DADT was repealed so there's nothing holding them back (kidding). Neil and his bestie, Stout.

Left: Our roomie, Michael, and his girlfriend, Whitney. They are kinda the cutest couple I know. Right: Me, the hubs, and his awkward picture takingness :)

Left: Neil, Jar, and Stout showing off their human totem poll skills and their uber-closeness. Right: Karisa (who gifted me with the pumpkin butter and joined us for a pumpkin dinner) and her husband, Ivan.

The pumpkin patch was almost as awesome as the people we went with. It was Neil and I's second time going to Bates Nut Farm and we were glad to have everyone along with us. While we were there, Karisa suggested doing dinner in a pumpkin so we made a date. On Friday, she and her hubby came over and we wowed the guys with our pumpkin presentation skills.

That's right, dinner was served inside the pumpkin! The pumpkin became the bowl/cooking receptacle and what made it even better was that you could scrape some of the pumpkin off the side and enjoy it with your dinner.

I'm not a mushroom person but this was delicious. You could do all types off things inside these pumpkin bowls (pumpkin chile, anyone?) but I definitely suggest following the recipe below.

Dinner in a Pumpkin

Source: The Mother Huddle

4 small pumpkins or 1 medium pumpkin (use 4 if you want everyone to have their own individual pumpkin bowl)

1.5 lbs ground beef

1 small onion, chopped

2 tbsp oil

1/2 cup celery, chopped

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tbsp brown sugar

1 can sliced mushrooms

1 small can cream of chicken soup

1-1/2 cups cooked rice

1 can sliced water chestnuts, drained

Preheat oven to 350º. Wash the outer surface of the pumpkins thoroughly. Cut a circle in the top, just like if you were going to carve the pumpkin. Remember to slant the knife so that the lid doesn't fall straight through. Clean out all of the seeds and stringy pulp. Rinse well and set aside.

Heat the oil in a sauce pan. Add ground beef and cook until brown, drain. Add onion and celery and cook until translucent, about 2 minutes. Once, the vegetables are done, add the brown sugar, soy sauce, cream of chicken soup, mushrooms, cooked rice, and water chestnuts. Mix well.

Place the cleaned pumpkins on a cookie sheet. Scoop the mixture into the pumpkin and place the pumpkin top back on. Put the pumpkins into the oven and cook for 1-2 hours. Check after an hour. The cooking time will vary according to size of the pumpkin. Our little ones took just over an hour. You will know it is done when the pumpkin is tender and the mixture is bubbling all the way through.

Serve warm. Enjoy!

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

So I've been a little absent. My in-laws came out for a visit and then 2 days later my dad came out to visit! We haven't seen them since July so we we're quite excited! I didn't get much blogging done but I sure did a lot of cooking! I'll post the recipes in the next few days but for now I'll leave you with my favorite Fall snack!

Scoop the seeds from the pumpkin and try to separate from pulp. Rinse pumpkin seeds under cold water and pick out all the pulp and seeds. This is easiest to do when it's in a colander.

In a small saucepan, add the seeds to water, about 2 cups to every half cup of seeds. Add a half tablespoon of salt for every cup of water (more if you like your seeds saltier). Bring to a boil. Let simmer for ten minutes and remove from heat and drain.

If you prefer, leave them out overnight to dry out.

Place the pumpkins in a single layer on an oiled baking sheet, stirring to coat. If you prefer, omit the oil and coat with a non-stick cooking spray.

Sprinkle with salt and bake at 325º F until toasted, about 25 minutes. Stirring every 8-10 minutes.

Let cool and store in an airtight container.

Mummy Dogs

Last night, hubby and I finally carved our pumpkin. We opened our screen door, let the 80º weather drift in for a few minutes, closed it and tried to get into the Halloween spirit by imagining it was a chilly 50º. To get us in the mood I served mummy dogs! While not the most elegant or extremely sophisticated meal, it was fun to eat these little guys and get in the Halloween mood! These would be perfect for a Halloween party!

Recipe is from Pillsbury website

1 can Pillsbury refridgerated crescent rolls

2.5 slices of american cheese, quartered

10 large hot dogs

cooking spray

mustard, ketchup, optional

Heat oven to 375º. Unroll dough, separate at perforations to create 4 rectangles. With a knife, cut each rectangle lengthwise into 10 pieces. Wrap 4 pieces of dough and 1/4 slice of cheese to look like bandages, stretching dough slightly to completely cover hot dog. About 1/2 inch from one end, separate the "bandages" so the hot dog shows through for the face. Place wrapped hot dogs, cheese side down, on greased large cookie sheet.

Bake 13-17 minutes until dough is a light golden brown. use mustard to add features to the face. Enjoy!

Candy Corn Cupcakes

I can't take credit for this picture. I've had it saved on my computer and don't have the source.

If it's yours let me know and I'll give you credit!

I love candy corn. I inherited this love of candy corn from my dad. We would even leave candy corn out for the reindeer on Christmas Eve! Even though I chow down on the sugary goodness anytime of the year, eating it during October just makes it even better. I've yet to reach the point where I can't eat anymore but I'm getting close this October!

This recipe is simple but the cute factor comes from the coloring and decorations. I know a lot of food bloggers dislike using cake mixes but I have no problem whipping out my Duncan Hines and making some cupcakes. As much as I love made-from-scratch cupcakes, I love the ease of a mix when I have no time!

1 box of white cake mix prepared according to directions on the box

red food coloring

yellow food coloring

white icing

Divide your prepared cake mix evenly between two bowls. Add drops of yellow food coloring to one bowl of the batter. Mix until desired shade of yellow is achieved. Add red and yellow food coloring to the other bowl of batter and mix until desired shade of orange is reached. Fill cupcakes 1/4 full with yellow batter. Top the yellow batter with an orange batter to the halfway point. Bake cupcakes according to the directions on the box. Cool. Top with white icing and desired decorations!

Be careful not to bake too long or your cupcake will develop a nice brown outside and the only way to see the coloring will be to cut it in half. I learned that the first batch. Also, it works better with mini cupcakes than with the regular sized ones!

Try not to overindulge on candy corn!

I love Fall

Image from Martha Stewart

I love Fall. The colors, the weather, the holidays, and the food. However, living in Southern California, I've heard the palm trees don't really change colors and besides a slight chill in the mornings, the weather doesn't really change either. So I'll have to make do with the holidays and the food- which I have no problem with.

I love Halloween and Thanksgiving. I can't wait to decorate and cook, especially with pumpkin! I keep hearing that there is a pumpkin shortage this year but I've had no trouble finding it. Even so, I went ahead and stocked up. So get ready for pumpkin pie, pumpkin cheesecake, pumpkin fluff, pumpkin fudge, and if I'm super ambitious, pumpkin bread.

Halloween is such a fun holiday. I love decorations and I absolutely adore all the cute desserts. I also can't wait to try my hand at using royal icing to decorate some Halloween sugar cookies. I've found a few tutorials and I'll be sure to post the results once I've tried it!

So get ready for some fun fall themed posts! And if you have any

suggestions please let me know!