Roast whole stuffed pumpkin - Nigella Cookalong

I've been keeping an eye on Nigella's Cookalong and joining in when I can. When the November recipe was posted for Roast Stuffed Pumpkin I was excited.

I bought this beautiful pumpkin at the Orange Farmer's market.

The top is removed and the insides scooped out.

Nigella suggests this great idea where you half fill your pumpkin with rice in a freezer bag to determine how much you need, since all pumpkins are different sizes.

For the rice filling you soften some onion and then add cranberries, ground ginger and allspice, garlic, and zest.

My only real variation to the recipe was adding some chopped zucchini chunks, really my laziness so I could serve it up as a more complete meal without cooking extra veg!

The basmati rice is stirred in and then add stock, I used my homemade free range chook stock.

The lid is then popped on and the rice allowed to absorb the stock over low heat.

The inside of the pumpkin is rubbed with garlic and salt.

Fill it up with your rice filling, and push the 'lid' on top.

The bottom is wrapped in foil and hot water is added to a pan for roasting.

It is baked for a couple of hours and then it is oh so soft but yet fully intact.

Certainly an impressive table decoration, I am definitely going to cook it again for a dinner party.

The tender sweet roasted pumpkin was the perfect accompaniment for the rice filling, so flavoursome, especially those beautiful cranberries and the zucchini absorbing so much flavour.

Not to forget the gingery tomato sauce made to accompany the dish, I thought it tasted quite strange on its own but I couldn't get enough of it when eating with the pumpkin and rice.

Thank you Nigella for yet another amazing recipe!