Pumpkin Stew

I'm not much of a recipe follower, as you may have noticed...I like to tweak and adjust things and add things that I feel would add to the dish. Sometimes this works well, sometimes not so well, but I can't remember a time when it was utterly inedible so at least there's that!

I found this stew recipe online. I used to have a pumpkin stew recipe I was fond of, but I have no idea what happened to it and stew is pretty much stew no matter what, so I mainly needed to see the details of the method. You cook the stew inside a whole pumpkin, you see, and then when you serve it you scrape out bits of the pumpkin into the bowl. It's looks really cool, and tastes great while being something a bit different - stew is stew, but there's something about ladling supper out of a giant orange gourd that adds to the atmosphere...as well as the little different taste!

This recipe came from Taste of Home Magazine, but to be honest it's identical to 6 other recipes I found elsewhere. I don't know who came up with it first! I made it almost exactly according to recipe because I was put into a rush by a kid coming home and informing me he had to be at a football game 15 miles out of town tonight and I had to take him. I didn't get to eat till we got home, and while it was delicious I did think of a couple of things to try next time - I'll note those on the bottom.

Ingredients

* 2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch cubes
* 3 tablespoons oil, divided
* 1 cup water
* 3 large potatoes, peeled if desired (I don't) and cut into 1-inch cubes
* 4 medium carrots, sliced
* 1/2 large green pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
* 6 garlic cloves, minced
* 1 medium onion, chopped
* 2 teaspoons salt
* 1/2 teaspoon pepper
* 2 tablespoons beef bouillon granules
* 1 can (14-1/2 ounces) diced tomatoes, undrained
* 1 pumpkin (10 to 12 pounds)

Directions

* In a Dutch oven, brown meat in 2 tablespoons oil. Add water, potatoes, carrots, green pepper, garlic, onion, salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for 2 hours. Stir in bouillon and tomatoes. Wash pumpkin; cut to 6 to 8 in. circle around top stem. Remove top and set aside; discard seeds and loosen fibers from inside.
* Place pumpkin in a shallow sturdy baking pan. Spoon stew into pumpkin and replace top. Brush outside of pumpkin with remaining oil. Bake at 325° for 1 to 1-1-2 hours or just until the pumpkin is tender (do not overbake. Mine took an hour but it was a bit smaller than recommended here. Stab it with a knife and if it's soft, it's ready!). Serve stew from pumpkin, scooping out a little pumpkin with each serving. Yield: 8-10 servings.

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Notes: I don't like instant beef broth, Next time I will use real instead of water. I will also add a splash of red wine to the cooking pot. I would also like to see some mushrooms in there and maybe a touch of flour so the gravy comes out thicker.