Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve been here! What is it about the fall…? I remember posting this time last year after a too-long blog-hiatus, sharing the highlights of my busy-ness and the cooking and eating that accompanied it. But this fall is something else altogether. It had to happen that after I publicly delighted in living in one place for a whole year (long enough to start a little teensy tiny garden, the inspiration of this post) that we would move again. And not just any move: we have relocated from Atlanta to Los Angeles. It doesn’t get much further without moving to another country!
Dan got a great new job here and we had less than two months to sell or pack our stuff, find a new place, and make our way – with Piggy the cat and Sweet Pea the dog – cross-country. We arrived, amazingly, with our relationship, our sanity and our stuff in tact and settled into our new (rental) home in the Highland Park neighborhood of L.A. Because packing, moving, leaving our jobs, Dan starting a new job, me searching for a job, unpacking, and all the attendant concerns hadn’t been quite exciting enough, I had to go and have emergency surgery a few days after we landed in L.A. Sigh.
Luckily, we had tons of support from our families, friends and Dan’s new workplace – I am now fully recovered and the house is even starting to come together. Check out this harvest from our grapefruit tree, a gem that I didn’t even notice when we first saw this house on our whirlwind house-hunting trip:
Speaking of sweet and good, there’s this recipe. Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good. Have you heard of it? It was featured on NPR about 10 days ago, in an interview with Dorie Greenspan about her new cookbook. At the farmer’s market the next day (Oh, the farmer’s markets in California! I am sure I will be devoting post after post to them in future…absolutely amazing!), all around me I heard whispers and far-away utterances: “Pumpkin…stuffed…with everything good.” I wasn’t the only one who had been captivated by the NPR piece, coming to the market with dreams of soft, roasted winter squash, oozing a warm stuffing of breadcrumbs, cream, cheese, and herbs.
One of the most delightful moments of Dorie Greenspan’s telling of the story behind this recipe – and you really should listen to the whole thing yourself – is her description of her friend’s garden, where the family grew their own pumpkins for this dish. Parents and children selected their own pumpkins when they were small on the vine, and each carved his or her name into the squash. As the pumpkin grew, so did their carved names, and each knew exactly which steaming gourd of goodness was theirs when it finally came to the table.
It is too soon to start hoping that I’ll live in one place long enough to have another little garden, where I too might carve names – or drawings, or poems, or hieroglyphics – into my very own pumpkins? I certainly hope not.
Pumpkin Stuffed with Everything Good
Adapted from Epicurious.com
Salt and freshly ground pepper
1/4 pound stale bread, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1/4 pound cheese (I used Gruyère), cut into 1/2-inch chunks
4 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped
1/4 cup snipped fresh chives
About 1/2 cup whole milk
Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees fahrenheit.
Begin by opening your pumpkin as for a jack-o-lantern – cut a circle around the stem to create a kind of “lid” that you can pull off. Scrape out the insides of the pumpkin and discard (or, even better, save your seeds and roast them separately). Generously salt and pepper the inside of the pumpkin.
Mix together all the remaining ingredients except for milk, season with salt and pepper, and stuff into the pumpkin. Pour the milk over the top – you want the filling to be nice and moist, but not swimming in liquid, although I think it really is hard to do wrong here. Replace the “lid” and place the pumpkin onto or into the baking dish of your choice, either well-buttered or using a silicone baking mat. (I used a silicone mat on a rimmed cookie sheet, which was perfect.) Bake for about 2 hours. Remove from oven and let cool a few minutes. Slice into quarters and serve.
A few notes: Dorie Greenspan’s recipe calls for cream, not milk, and I have no doubt that it would be even richer and more wonderful than this version. She also suggests many different combinations for the filling. I stuck closely to her recipe, since this was my first time making this dish, but it is easy to see that this is a very forgiving and flexible recipe and that you could make this into anything you want. She suggests trying other cheeses and herbs, adding freshly grated nutmeg, using cooked rice instead of bread, omitting the bacon for a vegetarian dish or replacing it with sausage (I think vegetarian sausage, of which there are several good varieties, would be great in this, too). She also mentions adding in kale or other greens, and even frozen green peas. I think roasted chiles would be incredible, as well as apples or pears, mushrooms, caramelized onions, and even nuts. The possibilities are truly endless!
Ummm. sounds yummy delicious. Love & kisses. Mom
Love and kisses to you too!
This looks soo yummy!! Unfortunately I can not try it as we do not get such pumpkins here!!!
:(( Will have to pay a visit to get a taste of this .
Hi Meghna – I think you could make this with many types of pumpkins or squashes, as long as you got one that a) tastes good and b) could serve as a vessel like this. Where are you now? I know Rachael told me but I’ve forgotten… this dish reminds me of one that an old roommate from Thailand made once, with a small squash filled with a sweet custard and baked. It was a beautiful and elegant dessert that she made with smaller squash. I am sure it would be easy to do the same with this. Let me know if you try it!
wow, I miss you!
Aww, I miss you too, Rachie! ❤
Sounds AMAZING!!
I know, right? The radio was oozing with yumminess when I heard the story about this recipe. Try it and let me know if you think it stands up to the hype!
Jenny, this looks great, and seems perfect for a non traditional thanksgiving treat. Also seems that this version worked well for you…Look forward to a verbal before I take the plunge 🙂 xoxo
Hi Jenny,
You don’t know me, but I had to comment. I heard this story on NPR and then today, in a frantic rush to figure out tomorrow’s dining situation, I looked up the title and immediately your blog came up. Thank you for posting this! And for the pictures. Also, after reading around on your blog, I see that we have a few things in common. My husband and I just moved to LA from Miami (but we are Southerners mostly having lived in Nashville) for his job. I am a mental health counselor and love to cook….also searching for a job that feels right. Good luck on adjusting to the city and hope all is well in Highland Park! Shelly
Hi Shelly – It’s so nice to hear from you! We should chit chat offline – it’d be great to get to know another displaced Southerner here in la-la-land. 🙂 Feel free to email me at jennywilliams17 at gmail dot com. I’m originally from Florida and have tons of family in Nashville!
I heard the NPR story too, and was almost embarrassed at eavesdropping on a private moment. Diane’s ooooos and ahhhs prompted me to try to recipe. (I LOVE the name of the dish!!) I served it for lunch with nothing but french bread, and it was absolutely totally completely incredible. I was going to include apples and nuts, but forgot because I was chatting with my friend. I used bread crumbs, sausage, leeks, cheese, spices, and of course the cream. I really don’t have the skills to describe how delicious it was. We ate it right out of a 400 degree oven, and we knew we should let it cool down, but we couldn’t help ourselves, we just kept scooping it up and saying “hot hot hot”. I’m trying it tomorrow with a different friend, and this time I’ll remember the apples and nuts, and I’ll try substituting Greek yogurt for cream, just to shave off a few calories and grams of fat. But with something this good, really, who cares???? Is our kharmic mission going to be dependent on how much we weigh? I don’t think so!!
Soon, I’m going to try it as a dessert with pound cake or angel food cake, raisins or other dried fruit, cinnamon & related spices — you get the picture. Really, I think this is going to be my newest clean-out-the-leftovers recipe. I think you get to throw in whatever it is you happen to have.
And there’s no reason this won’t work with whatever squash happens to be available.