The Romaezis

Stuffed Pumpkin

Outside of pie, I’ve never really eaten pumpkin as part of a meal. I made pumpkin purée with cinnamon for Kamran when I was making him baby food last year and it was one of his favorites.

It’s almost fall again and pumpkins are back in the produce department at our grocery store. So I needed to figure out a pumpkin recipe I could make for the family which both Kam and Kayvan could potentially eat. A friend on Facebook posted that she was making stuffed pumpkin–and there I found my answer. The recipe she posted was rather meat intensive and finished off with bacon. I wanted something more fruity, below is what I came up with.

Ingredients:
Pumpkin
1/4 lb sausage
1/2 onion
1/2 cup cooked cous cous
1/4 cup cranberries
3/4 apple diced
Butter
Cinnamon
(hindsight says I should have added cinnamon or brown sugar…or both to the mix)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Slice off the top of the pumpkin, remove seeds and strings. Melt butter and lightly coat the inside of the pumpkin. Sprinkle inside with cinnamon.

Remove sausage from casing and sautée with onion, drain. Mix in diced apples, cranberries and cous cous.

Stir all ingredients together and stuff pumpkin as tightly you can.

Replace top, place in baking dish with 1/4 inch of water on the bottom. Bake 1 hour and 15 minutes or until pumpkin can be pierced through with a fork.

To serve, cut in quarters.

Sun Dried Tomato Pasta Salad with Pine Nuts

I’ve been MIA for quite some time. SORRY!! Summer fun and all that jazz! Now that Kam is a toddler getting out is the thing to do!!

I got a hankering for sun dried tomato and turned it into a yummy recipe I thought I would share.

IT’s so super easy to make too.

Ingredients:
Pasta of your choice (I went with mini bow tie)
3oz Julienne cut sun dried tomato
2 oz pine nuts
14 oz artichoke hearts in brine (drained)
3/4 cup sundried tomato salad dressing
Fresh basil
Salt & pepper to taste

Directions:
Cook the pasta. The beauty about mini pasta is that it cooks quickly. Roast pine nuts in oil (optional). Mince basil and cut artichoke in bite size pieces. Add all ingredients, stir and refrigerate until chilled.

We will be taking this for lunch a few times this week. Yummy!