Vegan Stuffed Pumpkin

Eight years ago (to the day 😯 I'm now realizing after looking back at my blog), I stuffed my first pumpkin. It was based on this recipe -- though even then I didn't follow it exactly. Today, I stuffed another one. Wanting to (1) use up things in the fridge and (2) make it Vegan, I completely winged it as to the fillings. Here's what I did:

In a pan I sauteed the following (all minced) items in oil with some salt and pepper:

• 1 small onion
• 1 stalk of celery
• several cloves of garlic

Once that was sweated down, I added 4 or 5 chopped dates and a large handful of chopped pecans -- then cooked it all a little more.

While this was all happening, I chopped up the celery leaves, some fresh parsley, fresh dill, fresh mint, and fresh rosemary -- and threw it all into a bowl with cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, and pepper to taste.

The bread (sourdough) that I was using wasn't stale enough for my liking, so I cut it into cubes and baked it until it was dried and starting to brown around the edges. (There were, if I am remembering correctly, 5 small slices of bread -- but of course you can use more or less as you prefer.) After cooling for a few minutes, it too went into the bowl.

While the bread was baking, I grabbed a lemon that had been partially peeled for some prior purpose, and squeezed about half its juice into the bowl -- plus added a handful of sunflower seeds.

Then I decided that maybe a little extra binding might be needed, so I made a chia egg (1 Tbsp. chia seeds + 3 Tbsp. water, left to sit for about 5 minutes) and put that in as well. This is how it looked once I thoroughly mixed everything together:

Finally, I stuffed it into a cleaned-out pumpkin (I really packed it in there to make it all fit), popped the lid back on, and baked it for about an hour and twenty minutes in a 350-degree oven (your mileage may vary, but basically just go until the flesh can be easily pierced with a knife).

After letting it cool for a while, we finally sliced in . . .

Other than forgetting to put some salt and pepper on the flesh of the pumpkin before stuffing it, this came out really nice -- and is served here with some deliciously mulled cider that my husband made. 

This post is an original recipe that I created from scratch.

My goal is to share my love of food simply -- without all the fluff (unless it's Marshmallow Fluff!), long winded stories, excessive and repetitive photos, or incessant rambling that I see on other blogs.  I personally tend to skip over all that, just scrolling straight to the bottom in hopes of finding the recipe right away.  Therefore, I hope you appreciate the brevity above.

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