Food as dish

Today I present to you one of the prettiest meals I've made in a long time.  Note that I did not say tastiest--it was fine, but not omg this is incredible.  Also, pumpkin is stringy.  You don't notice this when it's pureed.

After completely selling it short, I will say that this dish would make the perfect centerpiece for a fall vegetarian feast.  You know, to avoid depressing people on Thanksgiving by not allowing a big hunk of meat to hold court on the side board, or frightening them by replacing said hunk with that most mysterious of beasts, the tofurkey. 

I was inspired to make this dish by a beautiful picture in Bon Appetit.  Their soup seemed pretty uninspired, so I made up my own.... which tasted sorta boring.  You need some oomph to balance out the somewhat bland, moist squash.  SO instead of writing down the soup that I actually made inside of the pumpkin, I will record a soup that I made with the leftover pumpkin, which was awesome. 

BA suggests using a "Cinderella, Blue Jarredahl, or Cheese" pumpkin.  You can find any of these varietals at your local bodega.  False.  I approached a large, bearded gentleman at the market standing in front of a truck full of various and sundry squashes to ask what he would recommend (/see if any of these breeds were real.)  He suggested the Long-Island Cheese.  As I was paying ($7 for a squash?? for serious?), I asked him why it was called a cheese.  "Because it tastes like cheddar!!" he bellowed, and started laughing.  I still don't get why it's funny, unless he meant C.H.E.D.D.A.R., which is just funny in principle.

Thar she blows:

Now, how does this become food?

First, we must prepare the pumpkin!
Cut open the top around the stem, as though preparing a Jack-O'-Lantern.  Remember to cut into the pumpkin at a bias in order to prevent the top from falling into the pumpkin later on.
Then, scoop all of the pulp and seeds out of the inside.  Rinse and save the seeds for roasting.

Step 2: fill the insides with soup.  And not the yucky bland soup in BA (white bread crumbs?  Seriously?)

Pumpkin filled with ingredients for a bland soup:

I suggest filling it instead with the following concoction, based on "Spicy White Bean and Sweet Potato Stew with Collards" from this jawesome book.
 Preheat the oven to 350.
Saute 1 chopt sweet onion until soft (~5 min) in 2T butter.
Add 2 sliced garlic cloves, 1 chopt red habanero (milder than green) or other hot chili, and 1t grated fresh ginger.
Cook for 1 or so min until it starts to smell really good.
Add in 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (w/ juice... just pour that whole can on in there) and ~3c navy or other white beans
Sprinkle on 1t brown sugar, 1/2t allspice, 1/4t coriander, a little salt, and a little white pepper (be careful, a little goes a long way).
Let simmer for a little while.
Smear the inside of the pumpkin with 2T or 1/4 stick softened butter (please don't tell Dad)
Fill the pumpkin with the vegetable mixture and 3c veggie stock (make sure to leave a few inches at the top--you don't want to be sloshed with hot stock as you take this from the oven)
**Note: if all this soup won't fit inside your pumpkin, save it--the pumpkin flesh to soup ratio is pretty high, so you can just mix it with leftover pumpkin later int he week.
While the pumpkin is cooking, cut some collard greens into thin strips (after removing the stems) and simmer for ~5 min if they're fresh, longer if they're nasty.

Step 3: Cook your masterpiece
Replace the lid on the pumpkin.
Place in a casserole dish.
Roast for 1 hour.
Remove lid, place in dish next to the pumpkin proper.
Roast for another hour or so, or until the flesh pierces easily (make sure not to pierce the skin of the pumpkin while you're checking.)
Once the pumpkin is out of the oven, stir in the cooked collards.

All doneskies:

Step 4: Serve it
Place the lid back on the pumpkin and bring the whole casserole dish to the table.
Serve with a ladle: first pour soup into a bowl, then scoop out a big hunk of pumpkin to put in there, too.

I served it with fresh bread and warm red cabbage salad.

I ended up with a whole lot of pumpkin left after we finished the soup.  I was able to scoop it from its rind and freeze it.  It awaits further adventures in the freezer (stay tuned for pumpkin risotto!)

If you make this, tell me how it turns out!  What did you do for the soup part, and was it tasty?  Did you find a pumpkin varietal that has less stringy flesh?  My dream is for a pumpkin that is actually a butternut squash shaped like a pumpkin, for butternut is the king of squash.


Well, since I've already made this load really slowly with so many pictures (insert old-timey dial-up sounds here), I may as well show you what Dapper Dan's been up to.  He has entered every box and bag he can find, but was not satisfied.  He has now entered the last container frontier... an ENVELOPE:

Oh Dan, what WILL you do next?