Canadian Acres
Farming in the North
Stuffed Baked Pumpkins
As I sit down to write this post, I realize that it’s been almost a month (A MONTH!) since my last update. How is it that as we get older, time seems to speed up? Because when I was 7 and had little to do with my day, I seemed to have more time than I could imagine…
This past month has brought full force winter to the farm. It began with a warm spell of muck and slush that basically demolished our road into the property. Yay! This meant that we had to either quad or take the side-by-side (thank you Timber!) to and from our vehicles which were parked anywhere from 1/2 mile to 2 miles up the road. hoo.ray. So everything we owned was muddy, icy, dirty and cold by the time we either got home or got to our vehicles to go into town. Just imagine what it did for my social life. I loved being the girl with mud on her yoga pants. Every. Single.Day. Anyway, we persevered for 3 weeks and I can finally celebrate the fact that it is -2 degrees Fahrenheit (I have to decipher now as I think sometimes my Canadian friends think I’m slow) and the road is frozen and travel-able once again. What has my life come to that I celebrate -2 degrees. Ugh.
During this time I decided it would be a good idea to not only sign up for an art class 1-2 nights a week, but also sign up for a 30 day yoga challenge at a local yoga studio. I am always up for a good challenge. I guess I’m starting to see where my blogging time went. We also hurriedly finished some chores around the farm before the ground froze and had many fires burning at the same time (pun intended).
In my attempt to keep my sanity, I have been relying on prepping dinners early in the day and letting them cook or bake for long periods of time so I can attempt to get my sh*t together.
After being inspired by a few recipes that revolved around stuffing goodies into a sugar pie pumpkin, I decided to try my hand with ingredients I had in my possession – because at the time, this is what transporting my groceries looked like…
A lovely blogger by the name of Georgia Pellegrini posted this amazing looking recipe that has fancier ingredients, but the basics allowed me to go rogue. And I was in luck because the night I threw these babies into the oven for 90 minutes 2 hours before I had to go to yoga, Clay shot a deer… I can attest that they are just as delicious cold as I’m sure they are hot from the oven.
Stuffed Baked Pumpkins
- 2 small or 1 medium sugar pie pumpkins
- 3 pieces of bacon, chopped
- 4 sweet Italian sausage links, casings removed
- 2 cloves of garlic, minced
- 1 small onion, minced
- 1/4 – 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
- 1 cup kale, shredded or finely chopped
- 2 cups stale whole wheat bread chunks, 1/4 – 1/2 inch pieces
- 1/2 cup of Gruyere cheese cubed in similar sized pieces as bread
- 1 cup of cream with a pinch of nutmeg
- Salt & pepper
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place parchment paper on top of a cookie sheet. Cut a circle into top of pumpkin around stem (like a jack-o-lantern) and clean seeds and innards from inside as well as from top. Save seeds for roasting or feed to chickens – the love ’em. Generously salt and pepper the inside of the pumpkins and place on parchment paper. Saute bacon until crisp and add sausage. Cook for about 3 minutes and add in garlic and onion. Cook for an additional 5 minutes and add walnuts and kale, stirring to wilt the kale and cooking until everything is hot and smells delightful. Season to taste. Add mixture to bread chunks and cheese and mix thoroughly. Stuff into pumpkins. Add salt and pepper to the cream/nutmeg mixture and pour over stuffing into each pumpkin, making sure that the mixture becomes moist. I did this in steps to ensure the bread absorbed some of the liquid. Place lid on each pumpkin and cook in oven for 90 minutes – 2 hours. It’s done when pumpkin is easily pierced with a knife.
Voila! These look beautiful to serve individually and we ended up cutting them in half to eat. Rave reviews from the deer hunter and the leftovers were magnificent… plus gave me some freed up time to get to yoga without mud on my pants.
Farewell for now… time to butcher that deer – there truly is a first time for everything.
~Katy
Canadian Acres 
Glad to see you back on !! Wow would be nice could be closer to you so can drive over and see all the wonderful things you and clay are doing .Thanks for the recipes it looks great a..Hey, wouldn’t it be great if you &clay had about 3 or 5 little ones running around so when they get older they could be helping you ::LOL .. Love Aunt Judy
This looks sooo good. I will have a try at it. Once again I am humbled by your writing. Good job!