Pumpkin Guts

Gooey, oozy & oh so tasty...

Pie pumpkins are the perfect individual sized serving dish especially when stuffed with bread, cheese & sausage. Plus, how cute are these to serve on your Halloween table?

The pumpkin flesh softens during roasting so it can be mixed into the filling when it comes time to eat creating a yummy one dish (ok, one pumpkin) meal. It's almost like having a cheese fondue with all the dippers mixed in.

We'd actually made this before a couple years ago using one large kabocha squash & then scooping out all the filling to serve. With the larger squash we found we had a lot of squash leftover after eating all the filling. With these smaller pumpkins there seemed to be a much better ratio of squash flesh to filling. I also changed the filling slightly this time by adding white wine to it.

Pumpkin Guts
(Since every pumpkin is going to be a different size you may use a little less or a little more cheese & sausage than this recipe calls for.)

8 oz bulk Italian sausage (spicy or mild, your choice)
2 pie pumpkins (about the size of a large soup bowl)
vegetable oil
3/4 c heavy cream
1/4 c white wine
pinch of nutmeg
8 slices french bread, preferably day old, about 1/2" thick
3 oz grated cheese, emmental, swiss or gruyere would be good

Cook up the bulk sausage & set aside.

Preheat oven to 400 F.

Cut off the top of the pumpkins as if you were going to carve them into a jack o'lantern. Clean the pulp & seeds from the inside & top. (Save the seeds to roast!). Lightly oil the outside of the pumpkins including the top. Oil a baking pan with sides & place the pumpkins in it.

Mix the cream, wine & nutmeg together.

Put two slices of bread in the bottom of each pumpkin. Then layer in 1/4 of the cheese & 1/4 of the sausage into each pumpkin. Top with 1/4 of the cream sauce. Press down. Repeat the layers using all the remaining bread, cheese, sausage & cream sauce. Do not go over the edge of the pumpkin. Put the tops on the pumpkin.

Place in the oven& bake for about 1 hour until the pumpkin is soft & the filling is bubbling.

They may ooze over a little bit. Let sit a few minutes before serving.

2 servings.

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