Sacramento Digs Gardening logo
Sacramento Digs Gardening Article
Your resource for Sacramento-area gardening news, tips and events

Articles Recipe Index Keyword Index Calendar Twitter Facebook Instagram About Us Contact Us

Cheesy Little Pumpkins make most of minis

Recipe: Turn tiny pumpkins into fun fall side dish

""
Wee-B-Little pumpkins are adorable -- and delicious. (Photos: Debbie Arrington)

What do you do with little pumpkins?

Every October, these baseball-size orange orbs pop up at farmstands and in markets. They’re attractive, piled in a basket or arranged in a harvest display. But how do you eat them?

Treat mini pumpkins like what they are: Winter squash. Just about any recipe for acorn squash, for example, can be adapted to a mini pumpkin, too.

Like any vegetable, some varieties are tastier than others. (Flat, hard minis border on “decorative use” only.) For cooking, choose mini pumpkins with smooth skin and round shape; they have better texture and more flesh.

This summer, I grew a late harvest of Wee-B-Little pumpkins, grown from seed (available from JohnnySeeds.com). The 1999 All-America Seed Selection winner, this compact semi-bush dwarf pumpkin thrives in a relatively small space; the whole plant covers less than 3 feet square.

Planted in early July, Wee-B-Little has been prolific with several 3- to 4-inch round pumpkins, weighing just under 1 pound each. They’re adorable.

My original intention was to carve a bunch of mini jack-o-lanterns, but the seed cavity inside each Wee-B-Little was too small and the walls too thick.

Fortunately, they’re delicious. Mini pumpkins can be roasted, boiled, steamed, baked or mashed. Or they can be cooked and pureed for use in other recipes.

Cheesy Little Pumpkins takes advantage of their unique size and shape. It makes a fun side dish during the fall holidays. Eat with a spoon to scoop out bits of pumpkin with the filling.

Cheesy Little Pumpkins
Makes 2 servings

Ingredients:
Two mini pumpkins, about 12 ounces each
""
Cheesy Little Pumpkins make a fun fall side dish.

Salt to taste

¼ to ½ cup Monterey Jack or Havarti cheese

¼ cup heavy cream

Freshly grated nutmeg
Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash pumpkins and core them, removing seeds and scraping out seed cavity.

Sprinkle a little salt inside each pumpkin. Fill each pumpkin loosely with grated cheese. A small pumpkin may need only 2 tablespoons; a larger pumpkin, about ¼ cup.

Place pumpkins in a rimmed baking pan. Pour cream over cheese, about 2 tablespoons per pumpkin. Sprinkle grated nutmeg over the top of the filling.

Bake in 350-degree oven for 1 hour. Cover if getting too browned. When done, cheesy custard filling will not be quite set, but pumpkin will be soft.

Serve warm with a spoon.


Comments

0 comments have been posted.
RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

Newsletter Subscription

Sacramento Digs Gardening to your inbox.

Local News

Ad for California Local

Taste Spring! E-cookbook

Strawberries

Find our spring recipes here!

Thanks to Our Sponsor!

Cleveland sage ad for Be Water Smart

Garden Checklist for week of April 20

Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

Taste Summer! E-cookbook

square-tomatoes-plate.jpg

Find our summer recipes here!

Taste Fall! E-cookbook

Muffins and pumpkin

Find our fall recipes here!

Taste Winter! E-cookbook

Lemon coconut pancakes

Find our winter recipes here!