A lovely fall dish that makes a satisfying leftover soup.
Two medium to small pumpkins. Although you could use any squash with a deep cavity.
Cut in half and remove seeds. We cleaned our seeds and boiled them for about 5 minutes then dried them and tossed them in olive oil, sea salt, dried garlic and onion then toasted them on the stove in a cast iron pan until nice and crunchy. I also used them as a garnish for the stuffed pumpkin soup.
I baked my four pumpkin half on a baking sheet in a 400 degree oven until soft but not so soft that they were falling apart. About 45 minutes to an hour.
For the filling I sautéed one large onion. Seasoned with salt, pepper and about a teaspoon of nutmeg.
Then I added about 4 to 5 cups of cooked ground beef.
I had a leftover quart of pumpkin purée I had made for pies and I decided to pour that into my beef and onion mixture.
I then added about 2 cups of frozen peas.
Taking a quart of milk, I whisked in 2 TBS of Tapioca a starch and poured it into my beef mixture. Allowing that to come to simmer and cook down and become nice and thick.
I grated about 2 cups of cheese. I used a smooth creamy jarlsburg cheese but I think a sharp white cheddar would be tasty too. I was going for a warm creamy flavor.
Once my soup filling was and thick I ladled into my baked pumpkin half’s and topped each filled pumpkin with more cheese and toasted pumpkin seeds. I returned this to the oven for about 20 minutes.
Once cooked, I ladled some pumpkin and thick soup into bowls. The beauty of this meal is it uses pretty basic ingredients that are warm and filling. It makes a lot so that you can then scoop the left overs back into your soup pot and stir. The following day I added a bit of broth to thin a bit and we cooked it into a lovely fast lunch soup.
If you want to watch my video, I share a day of hunting and harvesting firewood. The end of the video I share how I made this stuffed pumpkin soup. The link is below:
https://youtu.be/urc9iEgKadg?si=nbmFCIqnZ67wpx94