Stuffed Pumpkin

Stuffed Pumpkin

1 pie/sugar pumpkin

3 links mild/sweet Italian sausage

2 Granny Smith apples, cut into chunks

1 cup walnuts, crushed/chopped

1 onion, chopped

1 Tbls coconut oil

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp nutmeg

salt and pepper to taste

Adjust your oven racks so that you have enough room to fit the pumpkin you bought into the oven. Preheat oven to 350F.

Prep your pumpkin like you would if you were carving it. Start by thoroughly washing the outside of the pumpkin. Next, cut the top to make a lid. Then scrape the insides of the pumpkin to remove the seeds and the stringy bits. Save the seeds... I'll explain why. Once the inside is sufficiently clean, set the pumpkin aside.

Pumpkin Seeds: Switch over to your seeds. Rinse them to remove the pumpkiny bits, and spread over a paper towel to dry them a little bit. Transfer to a bowl and sprinkle with salt and pepper, or any other combination of spices, i.e. cinnamon and cayenne pepper. Stir up the seeds and spices and then spread over a tin foil-lined baking pan. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. At this point the seeds will be nice and crunchy.

Chop up your onion. Heat coconut oil over medium heat in a pan on the stove. Once hot, add your onion and cook until translucent. While the onion is cooking, chop up your apple and walnuts. Alternatively, you can just put the walnuts in a sealed Ziploc bag and crush the nuts by pounding with your fist - this is what I did. After the onion has cooked down, add the apple and walnuts. Take your Italian sausage and remove from the casing (you can also buy bulk sausage from most grocers and save this step and some change). Break down the sausage so you don't have giant chunks.  Transfer to the pan with the onions, apples, and walnuts. Add 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, and salt and pepper to taste. Brown the meat.

While this is cooking, grab your pumpkin and place onto the foil-lined pan you used for baking the pumpkin seeds. When the sausage is done cooking, transfer your sausage mixture to your pumpkin. Pour in 1 cup of chicken broth (you can use water if you'd like, just add a bit more salt to the mixture).

Replace the lid of the pumpkin and slide into the oven.

Bake the pumpkin for 1 to 1.5 hours. Check after 1 hour. Your pumpkin is ready when you can easily pull the flesh off of the underside of the lid by scraping with a fork.
And here's your final product. When you serve, just scoop out some of the pumpkin flesh with your spoon/serving utensil.