Festive Halloween Dinner; Dinner in a Pumpkin

This recipe is technically from last year, but since we ate it after Halloween many of you missed the time to prep for the holiday so i am re-showing that post!

I had to share my dad's pumpkin!  Isn't is cool!

Justin's isn't too shabby either!  (below)

For those of you who had good intentions to carve pumpkins and bought them, but didn't quite get around to carving them, I have the recipe for you!  It is one of Justin's childhood traditions that we plan on carrying on, they call it simply Dinner in a Pumpkin! So fun.

So, clean out that pumpkin and roast the seeds.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds:

1. Preheat the oven to 400.  Clean out seeds and separate them from the stringy part.
2. In a small sauce pan, add the seeds, about 2 cups water and about a tablespoon salt.  Bring to a boil, let simmer 10 minutes.  Remove from heat, and drain.
3. Spread on a roasting pan spray with olive oil cooking spray.  Bake on top rack (maybe 20-40 minutes) til they begin to brown.  Stir them once.  Let cool and Enjoy!

We actually cleaned the pumpkins the night before.  Then put the pumpkin in the fridge til we were ready to cook it. 

Dinner in a Pumpkin
Servings approx 6 (probably more but being conservative) 8 Weight Watchers Points per serving

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
1 small to medium pumpkin, deseeded and washed with cap on.  Place on a cookie sheet (not necessary but easier to hold onto when removing)  Begin cooking the pumpkin for approx 30 minutes.  **if you have a large pumpkin which is what we had, cook for one hour empty.

Brown in large Skillet:

1 1/2 to 2 lbs Ground Beef ( I only used 1 lb but you can add more or less)

Add and Saute till vegetables are softened:

2 Tbsp Soy Sauce

2 Tbsp Brown Sugar

1 onion chopped

Several large Mushrooms sliced

Add:
2 cups cooked rice (brown is best!)

2 cans Cream of Mushroom soup 

1 8 oz can Water Chestnuts sliced

Remove pumpkin after it has been cooking empty, add ingredients and cook until done.  30 minutes to an hour.  The goal is to have the pumpkin completely cooked, so that you can scoop some of the pumpkin out with the beef mixture.

So good!  Very fun!