Pumpkin Pleasures- 2 great recipes that go beyond the jack-o-lantern!

Since most of us will be carving up our pumpkins this week, I thought I'd re-post this one for anyone who needs some good recipes. I just roasted the pumpkin seeds from our jack-o-lanterns Monday night, and mmmmm! Were they ever good! I got 2 cups of seeds from one large (not huge, but slightly bigger than medium) and one small pumpkin. Oh so good! Check out the seeds recipe, as well as the recipe for Dinner in a Pumpkin (which I will be making on Halloween night) below. Happy Halloween!

My little guy taking a break at the pumpkin patch last year...

I left a comment on this post about pumpkins on MoneySavingMom, and I had a request to post the recipes I mentioned on my blog, so here you go! The first is Dinner in a Pumpkin, which has become our traditional Halloween meal, and looks so beautiful and tastes so yummy when it is done! The second is my favorite recipe for baking pumpkin seeds. I became addicted to fresh roasted pumpkin seeds after I used this recipe, and I wish that pumpkins had TWICE the seeds in them because they are SO GOOD! Enjoy!

Dinner in a Pumpkin 

This recipe is from the 2004 Meadowbrook Ward Cookbook, and was submitted by Nancy Stafford- thanks, Nancy!

- 1 small pumpkin ("guts" and seeds removed)

- 1 onion, diced

- 1 to 2 lbs hamburger (I always use ground turkey)

- 2 Tbsp. soy sauce

- 2 Tbsp. brown sugar

- 1 can sliced mushrooms

- 1 can cream of mushroom soup

- 1 1/2 c. cooked rice (I like to use brown rice)

- 1 can sliced water chestnuts

Cook onion and hamburger. Drain and rinse. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, and soup. Simmer on low 5 minutes. Add rice, water chestnuts, and mushrooms. Spoon into pumpkin and replace top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

I like this recipe because you can take the seeds straight from the pumpkin- no overnight drying! And then it's only 30 minutes until they're ready to munch on!

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. 

In a large pot, add 2 cups of water to every 1/2 cup of seeds to be cooked, and 1 Tbsp. of salt for every cup of water (for example, for 2 cups of seeds, use 8 cups of water and 8 Tbsp. of salt).

Bring the seeds, water, and salt to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 10 minutes. Remove pot from heat and drain water from seeds.

Spread 1 tablespoon of oil on a cookie sheet or pan, then spread seeds out in an even layer to bake. Bake on top rack for 20 minutes or until seeds are golden brown.

If you try these recipes, leave a comment and let me know how you liked them! And of course feel free to share your own yummy pumpkin recipes!