Your favorite HARVEST Meal!

Hey guys!! Gotta share this recipe/idea with you. Ever heard of dinner in a pumpkin??? Dont throw those pumpkins away!!!! The origional recipe is with spaghetti but I hate spaghetti- my mom has always used this recipe for us 6 kids. This is a general recipe, assuming you know how to make a few things such as salad et. the magic is in the concauction of it all once its thrown together! Happy Harvest!

Pumpkin Preparation:

Pick out your FAVORITE medium sized pumpkin, about the size of a basketball would feed about 7 people (This is really a cute dinner so you might as well impress a lot of people, just keep in mind the quantities as you create this dinner!! The bigger the pumpkin the more people you feed!!!

Carve out that pumpkin- get all those guts out- but don't throw away the seeds!!! Get the pumkin nice and clean inside.

Place the pumpkin and top of the pumpkin on a cookie sheet, do not put the top of the pumpkin on top, set it to the side on the sheet. :) Put about 4 tablespoons of butter on the bottom center of the pumpkin. Jab the pumpkin with a fork about 4 or 5 times all around the outside. Stick it in the oven at 350 for about 45 minutes.


Stuffing:
While the pumpkin is cooking, make your FAVORITE stuffing recipe. Why not add celery and apples to your stuffing! The more Harvesty the better! Cook chicken breast as you usually would and then slice or dice the chicken, once cooked, and add it to the stuffing.

Gravy- make your FAVORITE Gravy recipe!

Once the pumpkin has been cooking about 45 minutes put the stuffing inside the pumpkin and put it back into the oven for about 15 more minutes.


Harvest Salad: (I got this idea from the Red Robin harvest salad, just add chicken and it can be its own meal!)

While the pumpkin finishes cooking create your harvest salad! Quantities depend on what you would like more of. Ya'll know how to make salad so I wont tell ya how much just what to put in.

Your FAVORTE greens (Lettuce and spinach at the least)
diced apples
candied walnuts (See direstions on how to do this below)
Feta cheese or goat cheese
Dried cranberrys
Top with cooked pumpkin seeds!!! (See directions on how to do this below)
Rasberry viniagarette dressing or any sort of fruity or sweet dressing with a vinagarette base. Honey musterd viniagarette is also yummy.

Candied walnuts-
Simply heat up your frying pan, put about a 1/4 cup of butter inside as well as 1/4 cup brown sugar. Let it melt together (while stirring) on medium heat then add the walnuts and stir. basically you are just coating the nuts in caramel that will soon dry:) Let cool before adding to your salad.

Cooked pumpkin seeds-(they taste better than they sound!)
take all those pumpkin seeds from that poor pumpkin you just gutted:) Wash them so there are no stringy orange squash attached any longer. Dry them out and spread them across a cookie sheet. Add about 1 tablespoon of salt. (Depending on how much salt you like) and about 2 tablespoons of butter. Just dalop the butter on top of the seeds and stick into the oven for about 30 minutes (Browning and drying the seeds) Continually stir the butter and salt around on the sheet to evenly coat all of the seeds. you will know that they are done when they are browned and crunchy, not sticky when you eat them.

Isnt this sounding yummy!!

Now add your third item.
Perhaps green beans?
Perhaps jello with celery and apples or other fruit in a wreath formation on top?
Perhaps yummy orange rolls?

And if you really wanna impress them add some sparkling cider to your dinner!


And make an apple pie or oatmeal cookies, carameled apples or something for desert! (Keeping with the Harvest theme)

the best thing about this dinner is that it only takes about 1.5 hours to do it all. you'll be amazed. Enjoy everyone! Hope you like it and happy harvesting!

PS- Photos are not from my dinner- i have yet to make it this month. But they give you the general idea what it is supposed to look like.

Think Harvest!