Here's a fantastic and fun recipe to add to your Thanksgiving menu. I originally had this dish with rice in place of cauliflower a couple years ago and loved it!!! I figured I could recreate this to be grain free by using cauliflower rice. My inspiration came from this recipe, Pumpkin Stuffed With Everything Good. It was made with bread crumbs, but along the way it has been changed to rice (I include how to do that variation below). I made my own additions and changes as well. I had to make some adjustments after trying to cook the cauliflower in the pumpkin. I decided it gets way too much moisture (which is perfect for cooking rice), so it needed to be cooked in a casserole dish. Also, through trial and error, I decided that sauteing the onions and mushrooms in the bacon grease added some additional flavor. You certainly can leave the entire pumpkin part out (unless you are using rice), but it makes for such a great fall presentation!Instructions
Recipe: “Rice” Stuffed Pumpkin
Ingredients
- 1 medium sized pumpkin, about 3 pounds
- 1 medium head of cauliflower, riced (run though a food processor)
- 4 pieces of bacon, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 1/2 cups mushrooms, chopped
- 3/4 cup sliced green onion, greens and whites (about 4 onions)
- 1/4 cup unsweetened vanilla non-dairy milk
- 2 tbsp grass-fed butter, melted (optional, see variation below)
- 2-3 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 tbsp fresh thyme, chopped
- 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 1/8-1/4 tsp nutmeg
- Pepper to taste
Instructions
- Place the riced cauliflower in a large mixing bowl and set aside
- Cook bacon in a skillet until crispy, remove from grease and add to the cauliflower. Pour out all but 2 tablespoons of grease.
- Place the onions and mushrooms in the skillet of grease and saute over medium heat until the onion is translucent and mushrooms are tender
- Add the onion and mushroom mixture, garlic, butter, milk, thyme, salt, pepper and nutmeg to the cauliflower and mix well
- Place the mixture in a casserole dish and cover
- Bake at 350 for an hour
- While the cauliflower is baking, cut off the top of the pumpkin and remove the seeds and guts
- Once the cauliflower is done, spoon it into the pumpkin and place it on a cookie sheet. Return it to the oven with the lid on for another 15-30 minutes (make sure the oven shelf is low enough so the stem isn’t touching the burner).
- Remove the top after 15 minutes and remove from oven if cauliflower is done or cook another 15 minutes with lid off until done.
- Serve hot in the pumpkin
Variations
Butter makes everything better! You could substitute it with ghee as a dairy free option or increase the milk to 1/3 cup from 1/4 cup.
The original recipe calls for bread crumbs or rice. To make this with rice, sub the cauliflower with 2 cups of uncooked rice, use 1/3 cup milk and cook the entire dish inside the pumpkin from the start for 60-90 minutes with lid on. Remove lid the last 15-30 minutes and cook until rice is done (Directions in link above for original recipe).
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