A Spooktacular Stuffed Pumpkin in 7 Easy Steps

Doesn't Mr. Jack-O-Lantern look spooktacular & happy?

I love, love, love October! Ghoul and gravestones pop up in suburban yards. Scarecrows and carved pumpkins grin at you from pretty porches. There might even be witches on broomsticks and skeletons lurking by the mailbox. The playful whimsy of the month is infectious.

And nowhere do I get more inspired than in the kitchen. In the past, I have served Monster Meatballs (with olive eyes and carrot hair), black pasta (made with squid ink), Graveyard Cake (some call it dirt cake)...in other words, yes, I like playing with food. :) So I loved it when my #Letslunch twitter buds, a group of food bloggers from around the globe, chose this month's theme: SCARY!

I like to involve my entire family in my kitchen projects...fun and educational for the kids, less work for mom and dad doesn't feel left out. Yeah, I delegate. And, seriously, the kids loved putting together Mr. Pumpkin.

First Step: Go to the store and find the "perfect" pumpkin. For our family of four, we used a small pie pumpkin. I decided it had to be between 3 to 4 pounds. Rest I left up to the kids. They found a good one with a little bulge on the front...perfect for a nose.

Second Step: Prepare the pumpkin. The DH was put in charge sharp tools and, together with the kids, he carved out the lid, scraped and cleaned out the pumpkin (yes, the kids saved the seeds for roasting) and created a jovial Jack-O-Lantern. Yay!

Third Step: This is where I come in and prepare the filling. I think I love working in the kitchen during Fall because of all the great seasonal ingredients: vibrant pumpkins, crisp, tart apples, ruby-red cranberries and sweet, warm cinnamon. Mmmm.

So for the filling I put together a curried turkey-couscous mixture with sage, apples,cranberries, chickpeas, tomatoes and a dash of cinnamon. I always make extra because the family loves this as much as I do.

Doesn't that look delicious?

Fourth Step: Season the pumpkin. I brush melted butter on the insides of the pumpkin and then seasoned with a bit of salt and pepper. Next time, I'd add a bit of powdered garlic. Then I spooned in the filling.

Step Five: Replace the pumpkin lid, place the entire pumpkin in an oven-proof dish and cover with foil. Place the dish inside the pre-heated oven. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake another 10 to 15 minutes, or until pumpkin is done.

Step Six: Prepare for serving. Take all the pictures you want (Mr. Pumpkin was a star...he had 3 photographers snapping pictures from every angle imaginable...I stayed out of the fray) and then cut him into wedges.

Step Seven: Dig in!

Curried Turkey-Couscous Filling:

Vegetable oil
1 small onion, peeled and diced
2 celery stems, sliced
1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
6 to 8 fresh sage leaves
2 medium cloves of garlic, minced
1 large apple chopped
2 teaspoon curry powder
20 ounces ground turkey sweet Italian sausage
2 cup Israeli couscous (larger pearls of couscous), cooked
1 15-oz can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1 14.5-oz can diced tomatoes with liquid
1/4 to 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 teaspoon garam masala (this Indian spice has cinnamon as one of it's ingredients, you can replace GM with 1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon of cumin)

 Directions:

Heat oil in a frying pan. Add onions, celery, red pepper flakes and sage leaves.
When the onion is half-soft, add in garlic, apples, and curry powder. Cook for for a minute or two.
Add in ground turkey. Cook while breaking up the pieces, until turkey is browned.
Stir in couscous, chickpeas, tomatoes, cranberries and garam masala. Cook until ingredients are warmed through and the sauce thickens. Take off heat.
Use what you will for the stuffed pumpkin. I love serving the leftovers over baked sweet potatoes or in scrambled eggs.

Check out other scary and fun offerings from our Twitter #Letslunch party:

Pumpkin Cake by A Cook and her Books

Celebrating Day of the Dead by SpiceBox Travels

Freaky Pretzel Fingers by Lisa Goldberg

Halloween Spice Cookies by Glass of Fancy

Cyclops Soup by HobNob

 Text and Images Copyright 2012, Rashda Khan

The Cowboy presents me Prickly Pear Cactus Fruit

The Cowboy knows that I’m adventurous in the kitchen and I’ll cook just about anything. Fortunately for me, he’ll try almost anything once. If it’s on a plate (and sometimes even that’s not a necessity), he’ll eat it. From time to time, he likes to surprise me with an ingredient and watch to see if he’s finally stumped me.  One time he brought home some sheep balls. No, you didn’t misread. I applied some Texas wisdom: fry anything and it’ll taste good. Yup, I cleaned ‘em, sliced ‘em, and fried ‘em with plenty of garlic. They weren’t bad.

More recently, he brought home these:

Now, after having arrived in Texas, I’ve seen these blushing beauties crowning cacti patches, adding flavor and color to a hard, flat, mostly brown landscape. I’ve even enjoyed nopales (the flat green cactus pad) in eggs and other dishes…that someone else cooked. But, somehow, I hadn’t ever attempted to cook any cacti myself.

I’m sure the thorns were part of the problem, then there was the name. A lot of people refer to the Prickly Pear fruit as a tuna. Even though it is the Spanish word for the fruit, with a separate word “atun” referring to the fish, the fish is what comes to mind. And that just calls up all sorts of negative images, flavor associations, smells to go with the most common recipes available – jellies and syrups. But now I had a whole bowlful on my kitchen counter, just waiting for me to do something with them. Worse, the Cowboy was smirking.

Life could have been worse. He could have brought them fresh from the pasture, thorns and all. Instead, he brought them already plucked from the grocery store (thoughtfulness or foresight about how far he could push me?) Whatever the reason, I guess I should be grateful.

The first order of business was a taste-test so I knew what flavor I had to work with. So I washed and peeled them, chopped them into bite size pieces. Took a bite, then another. Yummy! Sweet and refreshing, the fruit tasted like a cross between strawberries and pomegranate. Unfortunately, the fruit is full of tiny seeds. These are supposed to be edible, but I found them plain annoying. Conclusion: the seeds were going to be strained out.

The prickly pear fruit can come in many colors: whitish green, yellow, orange, magenta, purple. Mine happened to be a beautiful ruby. Loved the color! So I paired it with old favorites:

For the first attempt, I cooked both the cranberries and tunas together, then strained the cooled concoction. To end up with a jewel-toned syrup that adds awesomeness to vanilla ice cream, pancakes and such.

For the second attempt, I peeled and chopped the fruit, then strained it through a wire-mesh strainer. Next I cooked the pulp and cranberries to get a nice Prickly Pear-Cranberry sauce, which I presented to my mom-in-law for Thanksgiving. You can find the recipe and this week’s The Family Table here.

And yes, victory does taste sweet. Prickly Pear sweet. Bonus, I found some great online tuna resources.