Dinner in a Pumpkin

This was a fun recipe to make and really easy. My husband's mom used to make it for dinner on Halloween night, lots of fun!!!

You need:

1 small to medium sized pumpkin

1 onion, chopped

1 Tablespoon Olive or Canola oil

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

1 pound ground beef if doing small pumpkin (2 pounds ground beef for medium pumpkin)

2 Tablespoons brown sugar

1 (4 oz) can sliced mushrooms, drained (optional)

1 (10 3/4 oz) can cream of chicken soup

1 1/2 cups cooked rice

1 (8 oz) can sliced water chestnuts, drained (optional)

To cook rice - bring 2 cups water to boiling, add 1 cup rice and 1 teaspoon salt, put lid

on pot and turn down heat to low, simmer for 20 minutes.
Meanwhile, cut off the top of pumpkin and thoroughly clean out seeds and pulp. Paint an

appropriate face on the front of the pumpkin with a permanent marking pen or

acrylic paint.
Preheat the oven to 350 F.
In a large skillet, saute onions in oil until tender. Add meat, cook until well browned.(about 5 minutes) Drain drippings from skillet. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, and soup. Simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Add cooked rice and water chestnuts.
Spoon mixture into the cleaned out pumpkin shell. Replace pumpkin top and place entire pumpkin, with filling, on a baking sheet.
Put in oven. Bake for 1 hour or until inside meat of the pumpkin is

tender.
When done put pumpkin on a serving plate. Remove pumpkin top and serve. For your vegetable you can scoop out the cooked pumpkin and serve.

Serves 6