Well, I haven’t written about food in a bit, and there has been so much cooking going on at home lately that I felt that I would share with you all. As we are entering the fall, my crop share is providing me with different vegetables, so I have been playing around with delicata, acorn, and spaghetti squash.

Squash makes an excellent substitute for grain. There have been soups, casseroles, veggie spaghetti, but so far, my favorite squash dish to date was my pumpkin pie inside a pumpkin. The pumpkin itself was free with a purchase from a small health food shop near campus. So, I found myself unexpectedly looking for something to do with it. That is when I came across a recipe to use for inspiration.

If you would like to make this, you will of course need:

     – A (pie) pumpkin,

     – A whole bunch of eggs (I ended up using 4 whole + 3 yolks to make enough to fill               my pumpkin),

     – Some heavy cream, 1-2 cups (you can use coconut cream if you are don’t do milk), 

     – About a tablespoon tapioca flour,

     – Seasonings (I used some vanilla extract, cinnamon, and nutmeg)

     – The recipe called for a bunch of sugar; however, I used 4 tablespoons of maple syrup            to sweeten the mixture. 

You start by cutting off the pumpkin top, scooping out the seeds (save these you can bake them too!), and scraping any stringy bits off the inside of the pumpkin. The pumpkin that I was using was not the same size as the one recommended in the recipe, so I filled it with water about an inch below the surface to get a better idea of how much of the mixture I would need to put in there.

I mixed all of the ingredients together and poured them into the pumpkin. In hindsight, after eating the completed dish, I might bake the pumpkin for a little bit before doing this, maybe with a cinnamon-syrup mixture to glaze the meat of the pumpkin. Anyway, once this is done, you pop it in the oven at 400° degrees F. The recipe I looked at suggested timing and covering, and uncovering with foil, but it will depend on your oven. I cooked it for longer than the recommended time and just watched for the egg mixture to rise. Once you can insert a knife in it and pull it out cleanly, you are finished. I was impatient and ate some after only letting it rest for about an hour. I must say it tasted better after sitting overnight in the fridge.

If you would like to play around with this yourself, you might try looking up some pumpkin pie in pumpkin recipes to see if one of them best suits your needs. This was very tasty, and I plan to try it again. Click here for another healthy adventure in baking!