I love Fall in New England. LOVE. The leaves turning, squash and pumpkins everywhere, apple picking, Halloween – the list goes in for a really long time. A Fall favorite of mine is stuffed pumpkin, so I’m trading up and making stuffed pumpkin paleo-style. Prepare your mouth for the flavors of Fall, because this came out amazingly!!

Stuffed Pumpkin

1 pumpkin
1 1/2 lbs lean ground beef
1 egg
1 package of chestnuts

1 cup chopped celery
1 small onion, chopped
Olive oil
1/2 Cup golden raisins
2 tsp Mace
1/2 tsp salt
Pepper

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. You’re going to need a skillet for par cooking the stuffing, a tinfoil lined cookie sheet for the oven, and another piece of tinfoil to make little pumpkin hat.

Step one, prep the pumpkin like you’re going to make a Jack o’ lantern – cut the top off of it and take out the pumpkin seed. Sprinkle the inside with a little bit of salt and mace. Save the pumpkin seeds – those will be a tasty treat for later.

Drizzle a little bit of olive oil in the skillet at a medium heat, and then add in the onions and celery. Using a spatula, toss the veggies around the pan until the onions go translucent. This is called “clarifying”. Nice little bit of vocabulary, there. Next, add in the meat and spices. Break up the meat as it cooks, and stir in the raisins. You’re not cooking the meat all the way, so when it’s still a little pink, turn off the heat and rove the skillet from the burner. By par cooking the meat, the liquids from the stuffing mixture will cook the pumpkin from the inside, as well as infusing the pumpkin with the flavors of the stuffing.

Set the hollow pumpkin on the tinfoil lined cookie sheet, and curl the sided of the foil up around the pumpkin to make a little foil basket. This will catch the drippings to make clean up easier. Fill the pumpkin with the stuffing. It’s okay to go past the top because you’re going to cover it with that tinfoil hat.

Put the pumpkin in the oven. Mine took about 40 minutes, but the timing will vary based on the size and density of your pumpkin. You’ll know it’s done when the liquid from the meat is clear as it drips, and you can stick a toothpick in the size of the pumpkin without resistance.

Enjoy!!!