Ikea & Stuffed Pumpkins

Today we went to Ikea to get a pantry for the Manor, we were successful!  And Rampager even had a sleep on me in the O & A, which was nice because prior to that she was racing around squealing and generally being a toddler.

As I often do when we're out I ask Husband Friend what he wants for dinner, initially I was going to make a vege roast and then use the leftovers to make roast veg and feta pastries tomorrow, nom nom nom!  Buuuuut, I remembered we had a small pumpkin at home from our new garden that would be delicious stuffed and baked.  So that's what I did.  It was super simple and is a recipe that can be altered to include pretty much any veges, herbs, spices, grains, nuts or seeds that appeal to you.

Here's what I did:

First I put half a cup of rinsed brown rice in a pot and boiled it until it was tender, then I chopped up:

1 red onion, 2 garlic cloves, half a cup of raw cashews, 2Tbs fresh coriander, including the roots and grated half a cup of cheese:

I then fried the onion, garlic and chopped cashews in a splash of olive oil:

Rampager helped of course:

Once the onion mixture is cooked and the rice is boiled, add them to the cheese and coriander as well as some salt and pepper (if I were making this for my Dad - Father Goat - I would use another herb, he thinks coriander tastes like squashed cicada bugs...basil would work really well, but I don't have any at the moment), mix the 'stuffing' in a bowl with a spoon:

Cut open your pumpkin and deseed it.  If it's like our pumpkin though, it will be strangely void of seeds...HF jokingly said it's a new 'seedless' pumpkin (in the vein of seedless watermelon) lol.  After you've scooped out the seeds there might not be a large enough 'cavity' for stuffing, so then you'll need to scoop/cut out some more of the pumpkin flesh, don't throw it out!!  Freeze it and use it in a soup or a pie or something:

Then put the rice stuffing into the pumpkin after placing it on a baking tray:

It will then take about an hour to bake in a low-medium (160C) oven.  The pumpkin needs a while to cook, if you don't want the top too crunchy you could bake it for the first half hour covered in foil.

You could use any rice for this dish - basmati, jasmine, wild, or use something like quinoa - which I should have done but it didn't occur to me until after I'd put the pumpkin in the oven.  Couscous would probably work too.  Another addition that would be nice would be a dash (1-2 teaspoons) of soy sauce, but you can always add it after it's been baked.

Here is the finished product:

This should serve four people with a side salad or some steamed veges.

It was delicious :-)  I added a dash of soy sauce to mine.  It tasted so dang HEALTHY and was so filling and scrumptious.