If you are looking for a fun activity and dinner idea for this fall then you’ve got to try dinner in a pumpkin! This is a great meal for this time of year!! And a bonus we included glasses!
Big thanks to our friend Rachel for the awesome recipe. This was a fun dinner to make with the kids and it tastes great!
DINNER IN A PUMPKIN
1 medium pumpkin (or you can use a couple smaller pumpkins for individual servings)
1 chopped onion (I used 2 because we love onion)
1 pound ground beef
4 Tbsp soy sauce
4 Tbsp brown sugar
2 can cream of chicken soup
4 Cups cooked BROWN rice (or you can use white…I prefer brown since it’s healthier)
2 can sliced water chestnuts drained (optional)
1 Red Pepper (optional)
2 can slice mushrooms(optional)
2 Crazy kids to help and make a mess (optional)
To start gather all your supplies. We used a medium size pumpkin. Make sure that you pick one that will fit in your oven.
Cut the top off your pumpkin and clean out all the seeds and pulp. Make sure to get it all. While you do this get some rice started. Don’t forget to wash the outside of the pumpkin.
If you are anything like us, you may look over and find this….. (its been a bad patching week)
Next you can paint or face on the outside of your pumpkin with acrylic paint or you can use a permanent marker. We used acrylic paint. This was my daughters favorite part of making dinner. It got a little messy but she did a great job painting her little pumpkin! Ha, you can tell we had a bad day keeping the glasses on…
Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Next chop the onion and bell pepper and brown with the beef till beef is done and onion is tender. Drain drippings. Add soy sauce, brown sugar and soup. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Finally, Add cooked rice and water chestnut, and mushrooms.
Place pumpkin on baking sheet and Spoon mixture into cleaned out pumpkin shell. Bake 1-2 hours (depending upon the size of the pumpkin) It will be done when the inside of pumpkin is tender and can be poked easily with a fork. Ours baked for 1 hour 20 minutes till soft and filling (we call them pumpkin brains) is bubbling.
The pumpkin brains are delicious! You can serve filling (pumpkin brains) with some of the cooked pumpkin! Your kids will throughly enjoy this fun fall dinner. ENJOY!
