You bought those beautiful pumpkins for fall decor, and perhaps in an especially ambitious moment, you even used a couple to make puree for your pumpkin pies and creme brulees.
Problem: now that Thanksgiving is over, you’re not quite sure what to do with those pretty pumpkins.
You just bought them just last week and it seems a shame to toss them out – but you need room now for your yuletide decor. Sound familiar?
No worries. As long as you’re not dealing with gigantic pumpkins, there’s a delectable answer waiting right in Dorie Greenspan‘s new book, Around My French Table: More than 300 recipes from my home to yours (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $40).
Ms. Greenspan came through Dallas/Fort Worth on her book tour but I missed her classes at Central Market last month. A clever friend of mine, however, did not miss the recent segment on NPR’s All Things Considered in which her recipe for Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good was featured. He said, “We have to make this recipe,” and that’s exactly what we did.
And really, I cannot think of a pumpkin creation I’ve enjoyed more. This magnificent concoction might seem a tad busy, but it’s quite homey in the end. And, I should note, mighty rich. But if you love a savory bread pudding with all the hallmarks of fall, you should not waste another moment pulling this together.
You’ll want a 3-pound pumpkin, which isn’t too big but is more than enough to provide two very generous main-course servings. We used French baguette, Gruyère and Emmenthal cheeses, garlic, bacon, chives, thyme, pecans, spinach and pears for the stuffing, all drenched in nutmeg-laced cream.
Bear in mind that once you’ve stuffed this baby, baking takes 2 hours. Eat it slowly, as you’ll want to savor each wonderful bite, pumpkin and all (minus the shell, of course). Serve it with a Central Coast pinot noir, toasting the transition from November to December merriment.
Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good
Makes 2 ample servings
- 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.
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. (But it’s hard to go wrong here.)
Just out of the oven.
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 choices: you can cut wedges of the pumpkin and filling; you can 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.
Slicing to serve
Ms. Greenspan says:
* 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.
* 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.
