Pumpkin Carving Party

My boyfriend is a crazy good artist, which translates into being a great Pumpkin carver. I love decorating my home for certain Holidays, and Halloween really let's you get crazy. I plan on having him do at least 3 pumpkins to jazz up the outside of our house. These were our pumpkins last year...

Jacob did his by hand... amazing!

I used a stencil for mine.

This year, I thought it would be fun to have a get together at my house to carve pumpkins. The deal is that everyone brings a pumpkin and a food or drink, and we all get to eating and carving! I found a bunch of cool templates online which I printed out. You can also find some pretty creative decorations, like things for your windows, etc.

My spooky invitation

My friend Shira sent me 6 pumpkin themed recipes for sunday, and her and I decided to try something I have never done... a stuffed pumpkin. In fact, its called "Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good" and its from Epicurious.com. From the website: "It's a hollowed-out pumpkin stuffed with bread, cheese, garlic, and cream. Since pumpkins come in unpredictable sizes, cheeses and breads differ, and baking times depend on how long it takes for the pumpkin to get soft enough to pierce with a knife, being precise is impossible." This makes this dish amazing for those of you who aren't the exact measuring kind. That is kind of like my mom, although I think she secretly know what exactly a cup is of something by just looking at it. 


The below comes directly from the website. I did not make this up. However, this weekend after Sunday, I plan on telling you how my first whole baked pumpkin went. EXCITED! And thank you again Shira, for always feeding my inner fat kid.

Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good
1 pumpkin, about 3 pounds
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 pound stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into 1/2-inch chunks
1/4 pound cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthal, cheddar, or a combination, cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2–4 garlic cloves (to taste), split, germ removed, and coarsely chopped
4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped (my addition)
About 1/4 cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions (my addition)
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme (my addition)
About 1/3 cup heavy cream
Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment, or find a Dutch oven with a diameter that's just a tiny bit larger than your pumpkin. If you bake the pumpkin in a casserole, it will keep its shape, but it might stick to the casserole, so you'll have to serve it from the pot—which is an appealingly homey way to serve it. If you bake it on a baking sheet, you can present it freestanding, but maneuvering a heavy stuffed pumpkin with a softened shell isn't so easy. However, since I love the way the unencumbered pumpkin looks in the center of the table, I've always taken my chances with the baked-on-a-sheet method, and so far, I've been lucky.
Using a very sturdy knife—and caution—cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin (think Halloween Jack-o-Lantern). It's easiest to work your knife around the top of the pumpkin at a 45-degree angle. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the baking sheet or in the pot.
Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, and herbs together in a bowl. Season with pepper—you probably have enough salt from the bacon and cheese, but taste to be sure—and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled—you might have a little too much filling, or you might need to add to it. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin. Again, you might have too much or too little—you don’t want the ingredients to swim in cream, but you do want them nicely moistened. (It's hard to go wrong here.)
Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours—check after 90 minutes—or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Because the pumpkin will have exuded liquid, I like to remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.
When the pumpkin is ready, carefully, very carefully—it's heavy, hot, and wobbly—bring it to the table or transfer it to a platter that you'll bring to the table.

Serving You have a choice—you can either spoon out portions of the filling, making sure to get a generous amount of pumpkin into the spoonful, or you can dig into the pumpkin with a big spoon, pull the pumpkin meat into the filling, and then mix everything up. I'm a fan of the pull-and-mix option. Served in hearty portions followed by a salad, the pumpkin is a perfect cold-weather main course; served in generous spoonfuls, it's just right alongside the Thanksgiving turkey.

Storing It's really best to eat this as soon as it's ready. However, if you’ve got leftovers, you can scoop them out of the pumpkin, mix them up, cover, and chill them; reheat them the next day.

Bonne Idée There are many ways to vary this arts-and-crafts project. Instead of bread, I've filled the pumpkin with cooked rice—when it's baked, it's almost risotto-like. And, with either bread or rice, on different occasions I've added cooked spinach, kale, chard, or peas (the peas came straight from the freezer). I’ve made it without bacon (a wonderful vegetarian dish), and I’ve also made it and loved, loved, loved it with cooked sausage meat; cubes of ham are also a good idea. Nuts are a great addition, as are chunks of apple or pear or pieces of chestnut.

*YOU CAN SEE MY BAKED PUMPKIN HERE*

And there you have it! One amazing fall recipe. I can't wait to try it.

In other news... here are my Halloween windows!!! I am still working on the big one. It needs some decals :)

My door naturally looks like a dungeon