Pumpkin Stew

This is our traditional meal on Halloween night, a simple ground beef stew cooked in a pumpkin. If you use a pie pumpkin, you can also easily scrape out the cooked pumpkin to serve with the stew.  A regular small-sized "carving" pumpkin can be used as well, but the pumpkin flesh will not soften to the extent that you can easily scoop it out to eat - although it still makes a nice serving presentation.

Ingredients

1 small pumpkin
1 onion, chopped
2 Tablespoon oil
1 1/2 pound ground beef
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
1 4-ounce can sliced mushrooms, drained
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 1/2 cups cooked rice
1 (8 ounce) can water chestnuts

Instructions

Cut off top of pumpkin and thoroughly clean out seeds and pulp.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
In large skillet, saute onions in oil until tender. Add meat and brown. Drain any drippings from skillet. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms and soup. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cooked rice and water chestnuts. Spoon meat mixture into cleaned pumpkin.
Replace pumpkin top. Place on baking dish. Bake 1 hour or more until pumpkin is tender. Place pumpkin on serving dish. Remove lid and serve meat. Scoop out cooked pumpkin as vegetable