Dinner in a Pumpkin I

please add recommendation to put pumpkin in a roasting pan. The pumpkin sagged and juice ran into the oven; making a rather considerable mess!

A very good recipe. My children absolutely loved it! One suggestion I would make is leaving out the green beans. It has a "stuffed cabbage" taste and the beans don't go with it. Cook the pumpkin on a roasting pan to avoid the potential mess in your oven.

This was an awesome recipe!! I used tomato sauce instead b/c I didn't have any tomato juice. Also added 1/2 bay leave since it enhances tomato flavor. The only mistake I made was not covering the pumpkin. The rice wasn't cooked very well:( But the presentation was still good and hubby ate a lot!! TY Sara, this will be a nice family meal for special occasion.

I didn't actually follow this recipe. I made the 'Harvest Pork Stew' from this site, and baked it in a pumpkin. I just thought it would be helpful to share that I baked my pumpkin at 350 for about 2 hours, and thought it was done because I poked it near the top with a fork and it was tender. When I was serving the stew though, the bottom half of the pumpkin was still hard and not fully cooked. Make sure to check the pumpkin near the middle.

We loved this recipe and will use it as a tradition the day after Halloween every year from now on!! I used instead, a bit more garlic, added onion powder, tomato soup, minute rice & frozen peas. It was a beautiful presentation and very yummy! I'm sure you could do this with an acorn squash as well. Try adding pumpkin seeds on top. Thanks!

I've made a similar Supper in a Pumpkin for years, using sausage, lima beans, and no cabbage. I didn't have the uncooked rice problem after I started using Instant Rice. I have never cooked anything in my oven without a pan under it.

This dish was wonderful! The reason I gave it only 4 stars was because, I used some instant rice and some regular rice and the regular rice DID NOT cook. You must either use instant rice or precook your rice otherwise it wont be done. I cooked it for the full 3 hours. Also I used a carving pumpkin because all the pie pumpkins we very small and this makes ALOT! You should also use a very deep pan to cook this in bacause the pumpkin gets very soft and there is alot of juice. One sugesstion was to use 1 cup crushed tomato and 3 cups tomato sauce instead of the juice, which I did and I think it turned out better that it would have with the juice.I have to say though it is VERY YUMMY I will make it again!!!

Good, fun holiday recipe. But I cooked it at 350 degrees for 3 hours and the rice still wasn't cooked.

LOVE THIS!! I have been making this for my Halloween dinner for over five years! The only thing is that you need minute rice other wise you can cook that pumpkin till it turns black and you still will get hard rice! I love that when you scoop it out, you get all that pumpkin!! Marvelous!!

This was great for fall, there is so much cooked pumpkin that I used it the next day to mashed up with some sour cream and seasoning as a side to a steak. I used tomato sauce not juice but next time I will use 1 of the 3 cups of crushed tomatoes.

This was a huge hit with my family on Halloween night! I did as other reviewers suggested and left out the green beans, but added a little shredded cheddar cheese between layers. Dinner was cooked to perfection in the time it took me to bring my kids trick or treating. The presentation alone cannot be beat but we enjoyed the flavors so much we plan to make again soon!

Enjoyed this meal very much.

The first time I tried to make this I ended up with the wrong kind of cooking pumpkin, and I wouldn't have been able to get into its hard shell without boiling it for an hour. So I went pumpkinless, and made a casserole with the cabbage and filling instead, and my family went completely bonkers for it! I modified the recipe a little - used ground turkey instead of beef, tripled the garlic (we love love love garlic), and used Trader Joe's low-fat creamy tomato soup instead of tomato juice because I had it on-hand; also, as recommended by other reviewers, I omitted the green beans and cooked the rice half-way before adding to the other ingredients. I also probably used 4 or 5 cups of coarsely chopped cabbage. Layered in a casserole, cabbage on bottom, meat/soup/rice mixture on top, with a few cabbage sprinkles on top, this was really fabulous, and has been added to my regular meal planning rotation. I did cook the filling in a pumpkin once and it was great, but we were all a little disappointed in having a change to the dish we liked so much!

This was good! I was curious to read other reviews since my experience was very different - my rice cooked no problem, and far from sagging and dripping my pumpkin's shell became rock-hard - so much so that I had a really hard time cutting into it in order to serve the dish.

Very tasty. However, my rice was not cooked all the way. next time will pre cook rice half way then add tomato paste to replace the tomato juice.

one small problem but This recipe was really really good, the only problem was that the rice took longer to cook than the pumpkin, maybe you should soften the rice halfway so that it can completely cook in the pumpkin

I gave this 4 stars because I too tweaked the recipe. I followed suggestions and did not use as much tomato juice. I used one can of Tomato Sauce, 1 Can Diced Tomatoes w/ Basil & Oregano, and a splash of tomato juice to make sure there was enough moisture. I didn't have Italian seasoning, so I threw in a 1/2 teaspoon of Oregano, Thyme, Basil & Garlic Powder. I also used 2 4lb pumpkins, and it took about 2 1/2 hours to make. Everyone loved to recipe, and we will definitely make this a Halloween Tradition!

I made this for Halloween dinner last night. It turned out pretty good. It needs more spice than what it calls for. We ended up adding salt to our own bowls. I will be making it again next year for Halloween, with some tweaking of the spices.

I did not care for this recipe.

We liked the idea so tried it did omit the green beans like suggested in prior reviews it was a different taste not bad as we were eating the family and I made some adds to the taste by adding butter and brown sugar and a bit more salt. thinking if you were to coat the inside of the pumpkin with butter then brown sugar it before you layered the cabbage and meat/rice inside it would have the same affect as adding it post cooking and maybe a bit more liquid your preference tho thanks

It was pretty bland.