Recipes as requested...

Since everyone was asking about the dinner-in-a-pumpkin, I thought I'd send along some recipes from Halloween Day...the pumpkin meal, the glazed carrots and, honestly, the best Lemon Meringue pie ever (Ryan's family LOVES this dish and I've tweaked it and tweaked it and this one is good...and the pie crust I use for everything...totally fool-proof and delicious).


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(AND, LORENA, I DID NOT KNOW YOU WANTED THIS FOR YOURSELF, I THOUGHT YOU WANTED ME TO POST ABOUT IT...APOLOGIES.)
Dinner in a Pumpkin
(this meal is not amazingly delicious, but it's good enough for the tradition of it. It has kind of an Asian-y thing going on with the soy sauce and the sprouts, etc.)

1 medium-large pumpkin (make sure it will fit in your oven and take out all oven racks except bottom one)
½ onion, chopped
2 T. vegetable oil
1 ½ to 2 lbs. ground beef
2 T. soy sauce (or to taste)
2 T. brown sugar
1 (4-oz.) can sliced mushrooms, drained
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 ½ C. COOKED rice
1 C. bean sprouts
1 (8 oz.) can sliced water chestnuts, drained

Cut off top of pumpkin & clean out thoroughly. Paint face on with permanent marker. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In large skillet, sauté onions in oil till tender. Add meat & brown. Drain grease. Add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, and soup. Simmer 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add rice, bean sprouts, and water chestnuts. Spoon mixture into pumpkin shell. Replace top & place on baking sheet. Bake 1 hour.






Glazed Carrots
1 pound carrots, cut into 2 inch pieces
2 tablespoons butter, diced
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 pinch salt
1 pinch ground black pepper
DIRECTIONS:
1. Place carrots in a pot of salted water. Bring water to a boil, reduce heat to a high simmer and cook about 20 to 30 minutes. Do not cook the carrots to a mushy stage!
2. Drain the carrots, reduce the heat to its lowest possible setting and return the carrots to the pan. Stir in butter, brown sugar, salt and pepper. Cook for about 3 to 5 minutes, until sugar is bubbly. Serve hot!

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Lemon Meringue Pie (see lovely picture in post below!)

Pie Crust:(this makes 3 crusts...so enough for one whole pie, plus a baked shell or cinnamon pie crust cookies, if you want to make your kids happy.)

3 c. flour

1t. salt

--Mix these together.

1 1/4 c. butter flavored Crisco
--cut this in with a pastry cutter or knives, till the chunks look like peas (maybe slightly bigger). I notice that if I cut it too finely that pie isn't flaky enough...it needs those chunks to turn into pockets as they bake and the shortening melts. Okay, moving on.

1 egg
1 T. vinegar (white or apple cider)
4 T. ice cold water
--Whisk these together. Pour into flour/shortening mixture and mix with a fork.


For the Lemon Meringue Pie, you need a baked crust, so roll out 1/3 of the dough. Place in pie plate and bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes.


Filling:

1 c. sugar

2 T. flour

4 T. cornstarch

1/4 t. salt

1 1/4 c. water

1/2 c. lemons (usually 3)

lemon zest...I usually zest 1-2 of the lemons before squeezing

4 egg yolks, beaten

2 T. butter


Meringue:


4 egg whites

6 T. white sugar

Directions:

(with this recipe, it goes really fast, so have all ingredients ready before you start!)In a saucepan, combine 1 c. sugar, flour, cornstarch, salt. Mix in water, juice and zest. Cook over medium high, stirring often, until is boils. Stir in butter. Place egg yolks in small bowl and gradually whisk in 1/2 c. hot sugar mixture. Whisk this mixture back into your saucepan. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly until thick. Pour filling into shell.

Then whip egg whites until very stiff (you cannot get a stiff egg white if any fats--like egg yolk--come into contact with the whites, so be very careful and rinse beater extremely well, if you've used it for anything else.). Add the 6 T. of sugar while you are beating the whites. Place on top of filling, sealing edges and making the meringue stand up in foamy waves (everyone is very impressed with this!). Bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, until the meringue begins to brown.



If you ever try these...let me know! (Okay, the meal in a pumpkin might take while, but I'll be waiting to here from you all next year!)