Turn a good pumpkin into a great pumpkin

Pumpkins aren’t just meant for pie or playful evisceration. They are also a vegetable, a squash, and can therefore be eaten.

The question is: How? How to best eat a pumpkin?

The other questions is: Why? Pumpkins don’t taste particularly good. Why would you want to eat them?

The answer is: Not all pumpkins are created equal. Smaller pumpkins are often delicious and are reminiscent of other winter squash.

It’s the larger jack-o’-lantern type of pumpkins that give all the other pumpkins a bad reputation, at least in terms of texture and flavor.

So I decided to do something about it. I decided to take some pumpkins, stuff them full of other things, and then roast them.

It’s not an idea I had by myself. In 2010, the highly regarded food writer Dorie Greenspan included a recipe for stuffed pumpkin in her cookbook “Around My French Table,” and they have been a popular dish since then.

So I started with Greenspan’s groundbreaking recipe — though the idea was not original with her, either; people have been stuffing pumpkins for decades.

I used pie pumpkins for this dish. Pie or sugar pumpkins, which are always labeled such, have the best flavor of all pumpkins. They are sweet, but only a little, and the mild sweetness merely adds a hint of intrigue to a savory dish.

Each of the recipes uses a starch to help fill out the pumpkin. In Greenspan’s inelegantly named Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good, the starch is stale bread. It is used as the foundation for layers of other flavors: cheese, garlic, bacon or sausage — optional, if you want to keep it vegetarian — scallions, thyme, cream and a touch of nutmeg.

Those ingredients are satisfying enough as they are, but don’t forget the additional taste of pumpkin. A chunk of pumpkin in every bite makes a good meal better.

Next, I roasted a pumpkin stuffed with shepherd’s pie. That’s really all you need to know: It’s shepherd’s pie inside a roasted pumpkin.

If you kind of squint your taste buds, it is somewhat like eating moussaka, with pumpkin replacing the eggplant. And while pumpkin tastes nothing at all like eggplant, it also kind of does.

I used ground beef for my shepherd’s pie, but ground lamb, I imagine, would be just as good.

The next dish I made uses a large pumpkin — or at least large for a pie pumpkin — five or six pounds. It’s good for a substantial meal, which is why it’s called Stuffed Pumpkin Dinner.

People who are tired of turkey have been known to make it for Thanksgiving.

The starch this time is rice (in the shepherd’s pie recipe, it is mashed potatoes). The rice is mixed with ground beef, onions, green pepper and tomato sauce, so basically it is a chopped-up stuffed pepper stuffed into a pumpkin, with a few twists.

The biggest twist is the way it is cooked. Because the pumpkin is larger, the stuffing inside will be overcooked by the time the pumpkin is cooked through. So to remedy that, you steam the pumpkin for 30 minutes to soften the exterior before stuffing and baking it.

It works like a charm.

Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good

Makes 2 to 4 servings. Slightly adapted from a recipe in “Around My French Table,” by Dorie Greenspan

1 pumpkin, about 3 pounds

Salt and freshly ground pepper

¼ pound stale bread, thinly sliced and cut into ½-inch chunks

¼ pound cheese, such as Gruyère, Emmenthaler, cheddar, or a combination, cut into ½-inch chunks

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, drained, and chopped

¼ cup snipped fresh chives or sliced scallions

1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme

1/3 cup heavy cream

Pinch of freshly grated nutmeg

Center a rack in the oven and preheat to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment.

Using a very sturdy knife — and caution — cut a cap out of the top of the pumpkin as you would a jack-o’-lantern. You want to cut off enough of the top to make it easy for you to work inside the pumpkin. Clear away the seeds and strings from the cap and from inside the pumpkin. Season the inside of the pumpkin generously with salt and pepper, and put it on the prepared baking sheet.

Toss the bread, cheese, garlic, bacon, chives (or scallions) and thyme together in a bowl. Season with pepper (add salt, if you are not using the bacon) and pack the mix into the pumpkin. The pumpkin should be well filled; you may have too much mix, or too little. Stir the cream with the nutmeg and some salt and pepper and pour it into the pumpkin.

Put the cap in place and bake the pumpkin for about 2 hours — check after 90 minutes — or until everything inside the pumpkin is bubbling and the flesh of the pumpkin is tender enough to be pierced easily with the tip of a knife. Remove the cap during the last 20 minutes or so, so that the liquid can bake away and the top of the stuffing can brown a little.

When the pumpkin is ready, bring it to the table with care — it’s heavy, hot and wobbly.

Per serving (based on 4 servings): 451 calories; 25 g fat; 12 g saturated fat; 58 mg cholesterol; 18 g protein; 42 g carbohydrate; 11 g sugar; 3 g fiber; 620 mg sodium; 303 mg calcium

Shepherd’s Pie Stuffed Pumpkin

Yield: 8 servings. Recipe from prettyprudent.com

1 large or 2 small pie pumpkins

1 ½ pounds russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces

1 ½ pounds ground beef or lamb

1 onion, minced

2 cups chopped mushrooms (optional)

Salt and pepper

¼ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon tomato paste

2 cups chicken or beef broth

1 ½ teaspoons minced fresh thyme

2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce

2 cups frozen pea-carrot medley, thawed (optional)

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup half-and-half

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cover potatoes with water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cook until tender, about 15 minutes.

Cut top of pumpkin to create a lid, as you would with jack-o’-lanterns. Clean out seeds with a spoon, scraping the insides down to the pulp. Set aside.

While potatoes are cooking, brown meat in large pan over medium heat, breaking meat up with a spoon, until meat is cooked through, 3 to 5 minutes. Remove from heat and drain, reserving 2 tablespoons fat.

Add reserved fat back to pan, and heat on medium. Add onion, mushroom (if using) and ¼ teaspoon salt, and sauté until softened, about 5 minutes. Stir in flour and tomato paste and cook, stirring, until flour is incorporated, about 1 minute.

Whisk in broth, thyme and Worcestershire sauce into onion mixture, scraping pan as you go, and bring to a simmer. Return meat to pan and cook over medium-low heat until sauce is thickened, about 6 to 8 minutes. Test for flavor and add salt and pepper to taste. Add peas and carrots into mixture, if using.

Drain potatoes, return to hot pot and mash until smooth. Stir in butter, then half-and-half. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Rub the inside of the pumpkins with salt. Fill pumpkins 2/3 full with meat mixture. Fill pumpkins to bottom of opening with mashed potatoes. Replace tops of pumpkins. Place pumpkins on prepared baking sheet.

Bake in oven for approximately 90 minutes or until pumpkin “gives” when you squeeze the sides. It may take longer than 90 minutes depending on the size of the pumpkin.

If you would like to brown the mashed potatoes, broil them for 3 to 5 minutes with the pumpkin lid removed.

Per serving: 366 calories; 20 g fat; 8 g saturated fat; 68 mg cholesterol; 19 g protein; 22 g carbohydrate; 26 g sugar; 3 g fiber; 522 mg sodium; 62 mg calcium

Stuffed Pumpkin Dinner

Yield: 8 servings. Recipe from Taste of Home

1 large pie pumpkin (5 ½ to 6 pounds)

1 teaspoon salt, divided

1 ½ pounds ground beef

¾ cup finely chopped onion

1 small green pepper, chopped

1 ½ cups cooked rice

1 (8-ounce) can tomato sauce

½ cup finely chopped fully cooked ham or sausage

2 eggs, beaten

1 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon dried oregano

½ teaspoon pepper

½ teaspoon cider vinegar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Wash pumpkin and cut out a 6-inch lid, as you would with a jack-o’-lantern. Discard seeds and loose fibers from inside. Place pumpkin in a large Dutch oven. Fill Dutch oven with boiling water to a depth of 6 inches; add ½ teaspoon salt. Cover and simmer for 30 minutes or until the pumpkin is almost tender but holds its shape. Carefully remove and drain well; pat dry.

In a large skillet, cook the beef, onion and green pepper over medium heat until meat is no longer pink and vegetables are tender; drain well. Cool slightly; place in a large bowl. Add rice, tomato sauce, ham, eggs, garlic, oregano, pepper, vinegar and the remaining ½ teaspoon salt. Stir to combine thoroughly.

Place pumpkin in a shallow, sturdy baking pan. Firmly pack beef mixture into pumpkin; replace top. Bake for 1 hour. Let stand for 10 minutes. Remove the top; if desired, use paper towel to remove excess moisture from top of meat. Slice pumpkin into wedges.

Per serving: 281 calories; 5 g fat; 2 g saturated fat; 105 mg cholesterol; 27 g protein; 34 g carbohydrate; 11 g sugar; 3 g fiber; 377 mg sodium; 92 mg calcium