Eat, Drink, Cook: Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

From the first moment I stumbled across the recipe for Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good, I had to try it. I already had the perfect candidate: a beautiful little pie pumpkin I picked right from the vine at Venetucci Farm that I've been saving for something special.

One of the many things I love about Hethyr Pletsch, the personal chef who put on a holiday cooking class last weekend at Ranch Foods Direct, is her enthusiasm for ingredient substitution and experimentation. This is also true of Michele Mukatis, who taught a series of cooking classes this summer through her business Cultivate Health, and it's probably true of all foodies: part of the art of cooking is constantly improvising.

 

When I finally had a chance to try this recipe (an easily revisable mixture of meat, cheese, fruit and nuts roasted inside a pumpkin) I was improvising from the first. In the waning days of the farmers market when winter squash were plentiful, Smith Farms had an abundance of acorns in a glorious range of shapes and sizes. I chose one resembling a small pumpkin, thinking it would be great as a table decoration and then later for cooking. Over the weeks since, it even started turning orange. (Maybe the plant actually cross-pollinated with a pumpkin.) Anyway, it looked like it needed to be used up faster than the pumpkin, and it also had this perfect little stem on the top for a handle.

The results were beautiful and delicious. I had my moment of doubt first cutting into the squash (it's not easy to cut out the trap door on top and clean out the insides, but it is doable.) It also didn't take much more than an hour to bake (due to the fairly small size.) The spicy Italian sausage links from Ranch Foods Direct and the red wax-rind creamy melty Gouda cheese I used were excellent in it. (I didn't use bacon like the original recipe suggested, though I could have mixed it in. The sausage did seem to be a good choice.) I was reluctant at first to use bread in mine, so I included quartered fresh mushrooms as a filler. (Okay, I just happened to have day-old bread, so I did go ahead and use some of that too.) You could experiment with rice or a risotto pasta (I'm thinking about trying shredded cabbage) or go more in the direction of sweet (think dessert material) rather than savory (spectacular main dish.) But our savory version, with snipped fresh rosemary sprinkled in, was divine, a fun and flavorful one-dish meal (dish provided by nature).

After the two of us had dinner, we still had enough flesh left on the insides of the squash to scrape out and use later for a variation of curried pumpkin chicken chowder (a recipe from Hethyr Pletsch.)

At this time of year, a time for stuffing turkeys, I have to say it's almost as dramatic and satisfying to stuff a pumpkin to put in the middle of the table. And certainly, a possibility is to do both! Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good is as wonderful as it sounds.

   

Eat, Drink, Cook: Squash-stuffing weather

This is when

The last sun-ripened tomatoes

Overlap with an abundance of

Winter squashes —

Seasons mingle

In the air, on the tongue.

Reluctantly it seems, the lingering summer is transitioning into fall, with air crisp as a cider apple and sufficiently chilly for stuffing winter squashes, in my case, a delicata from Venetucci Farm, with creamy mild flesh, tender and very edible skin (I never remove skins unless absolutely necessary: they contain fiber, nutrients and often flavor… plus, I’m lazy that way), festive yellow striping and made-for-two manageable size. To fill one squash, I cooked and crumbled a half pound of bulk ground beef from Ranch Foods Direct, also adding chopped onions and minced shallots, chunks of apple from a tree down the block, even a few crabapples (what can I say: it was an amazing fruit year and even the crabapples turned out plump and sweet.) After cooking the meat and transferring it to a mixing bowl, I added grated sharp cheddar, also from Ranch Foods Direct, along with hunks of a good Swiss, and seasoned it with chopped sage and rosemary along with the salt and pepper, then placed it in the cavity of the halved delicata to bake for about 30 minutes. (I baked the squash in an inch of water in the oven for about 40 minutes before assembling.) What pleasure to experience the smell and flavor of this all-in-one dish that allows you to use what you have on hand and what you especially like. (Another variation for right now: slow roasted tomatoes and the last of the season’s basil with spaghetti squash.)

This is the season of abundance, and urgency. The temperature suddenly dives, and it’s a reminder that ripeness peaks, the days of the year are numbered, darkness is gathering in each day’s corners.

There’s an antidote to seasonal angst: Preserve It! — a big, gorgeous book that describes how to use natural preservatives like salt, sugar, olive oil, vinegar and alcohol to extend the useful life of fruits, vegetables and even meats. I prefer not to stand over a heavy steaming water bath for hours (especially when it’s possible to get good quality frozen and even canned produce) but lazy cook that I am, I can still find intriguing options in these pages, for example, a red onion marmalade, oven-dried tomatoes or apple rings, basil ice cubes or candied fruit peel. It covers a broad spectrum of possibilities, from home brewing to making sausage or sauerkraut.

If nothing else, I love looking at these bright glossy pictures, imagining today’s treasures preserved like jewels and then rediscovered and celebrated while the earth is still cold and bland. Apparently, I’m not alone. During last week’s The Splendid Table radio program, host Lynne Rossetto Kasper examined the national phenomenon of group canning sessions and the emergence of “Canning Across America,” an organized effort to “revive the long lost art of putting up food.” If you are so inclined, both websites offer additional ideas, reference books and recipes.

Speaking of abundance mixed with urgency, this is the final week for the Colorado Farm and Art Market, which ends for the season on Saturday, Oct. 16. Gather together some colorful heirloom tomatoes and winter squashes and celebrate with a harvest table.