Dinner in a Pumpkin

This is a fairly straightforward recipe. The hardest part is gutting the pumpkin and even that's not really very hard. Squash would be a good substitute if you can't find a suitable pumpkin. The filling is actually pretty good on it's own, but if you go that route you might want to toss in some green beans or broccoli.

1 small to medium pumpkin, cut the lid off and dig out the guts and seeds
1 onion, chopped and sauteed in a little bit of oil
1 lb ground beef or turkey, browned
2 tbsp soy sauce
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 can (4 oz) sliced mushrooms
1 can cream of chicken soup or homemade equivalent (you'd think mushroom would work as a substitute but it doesn't really taste that good, so go for the chicken)
1 can (8 oz) sliced water chestnuts
1 1/2 cups cooked brown rice

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Mix all ingredients together (minus the pumpkin because that would just be silly). Put the mixture into the pumpkin shell and replace the lid.

Bake 1 hour and then start checking the pumpkin every few minutes to see if it's done. When you can stick a fork into it with it being nice and soft you'll know it's done.

I baked my pumpkin in the Turbo with the extension ring because it was too big for my oven

The best way to serve this is to cut the pumpkin in quarters or eighths. Then scoop some of the mixture and put it on top of the pumpkin. Pretend the pumpkin is a little boat and the mix is the cargo.

Enjoy!