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Cheesy Little Pumpkins make most of minis

Recipe: Turn tiny pumpkins into fun fall side dish

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED OCT 28, 2018

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.

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RECIPE

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

Keywords:

recipes fall vegetables seeds gardening pumpkins Sacramento cooking seasonal cooking side dishes recipe

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Garden checklist for week of Aug. 16

During this break in the heat, feed your garden. Make sure to water before and after applying fertilizer.

* In the garden, direct seed beets, carrots, leaf lettuce and turnips.

* Plant potatoes.

* Harvest tomatoes, beans, squash, pepper and eggplants to prompt plants to keep producing. Give your plants a deep watering twice a week, more if planted in containers. Also, give them a boost with phosphate-rich fertilizer to help fruiting.

* Watch out for caterpillars and hornworms in the vegetable garden. They can strip a plant bare in one day. Pick them off plants by hand in early morning or late afternoon.

* Feed citrus trees their last round of fertilizer for the year. This will give a boost to the fruit that’s still small.

* Mulch can be your garden’s best friend – it conserves moisture while blocking out weeds. But don't let mulch mound around stalks, stems or trunks. That can promote rot.

* Camellia leaves looking a little yellow? Give them some chelated iron. That goes for azaleas and gardenias, too.

* Pick up after your fruit trees. Clean up debris and dropped fruit; this cuts down on insects and prevents the spread of brown rot. Then feed fruit trees with slow-release fertilizer for better production for next year.

* To prolong bloom into fall, feed begonias, fuchsias and container plants. Always water before fertilizing.

* Fertilize fall-blooming perennials, too. Chrysanthemums can be fed until the buds start to open.

* Prepare for a fall full of flowers by paying a little extra attention to your garden. Cut off spent blooms from roses, annuals and perennials, then give them a boost of fertilizer. Make sure to water plants before feeding. Roses will rebloom about six to eight weeks after deadheading.

* Indoors, start seedlings for fall vegetable planting, including bunching onion, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, radicchio and lettuce.

* Sow seeds of perennials in pots for fall planting including yarrow, coneflower and salvia.

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