Roasted Stuffed Pumpkin and the Trumpeter of Krakow

One of the fun things about homeschooling is you know what your children are studying and you know how to coordinate learning with the other activities. It might sound like this was all planned but really it just happened.

We have been reading The Trumpeter of Krakow. It fits with our Middle Ages time period that we have been studying. I read the book aloud. We read about a chapter a day and so it did take a few weeks to read. Yesterday we finished the book.

I had a pumpkin sitting that needed to be cooked. I knew I could cook it and have pumpkin for pie, soup, muffins, pancakes but I still have some in the freezer from another pumpkin. I decided why not try something new and stuff it and back it. I looked online and got some recipe ideas but modified it a bit. The one recipe that I almost followed called for cheese. I like cheese but adding cheese to rice and sausage just didn't appeal to me. I did add a diced apple.

It was the perfect job for the children -- clean out the pumpkin. That meant their hands had to get a bit dirty.

While they cleaned out the pumpkin, I fried an onion with a pound of sausage and some garlic because everything tastes better with garlic and made some wild rice (cook according to the directions). I mixed the sausage and the wild rice together. I had some leftover cooked rice which I added as well just to stretch it a bit. I diced an apple and added it to the mixture. 

I tasted it and it was good. I had to quick stuff the pumpkin before I was tempted to eat all the sausage. 

I poured a bit of half and half on top which gave it a bit of a cream taste. I have to decide if I would do that next time or not.

1 pound sausage
1 onion diced
3 cloves garlic minced

Sauté till done.

1 package of wild rice or could do 2 packages
Cook a package of wild rice. Add to the sausage mixture.

Add a diced apple

Fill the pumpkin. Pour 1/2 cup of half and half over the mixture in the pumpkin.

Put the lid on and put it in the oven at 350 for 90 minutes. The knife should go into the side when it is done.

Scoop it out and get some of the cooked pumpkin as well. Put it on your plate and enjoy.

So what does that have to do with the book The Trumpeter of Krakow? Pan Andrew, his wife and son Joseph are fleeing from Ukraine to Poland. They have only a pumpkin in their cart and one that Pan Andrew will not sell. There is quite a bit of adventure and suspense as to why the pumpkin is so valuable. I can't tell you all of that because you have to have a reason to read the book. I will say that at the end of the book Pan Andrew describes how he would clean out the pumpkin and rub the outside with oil to preserve the pumpkin.

The children got to experience cleaning out the pumpkin. We just hid some sausage inside our pumpkin and baked it. No oh I can't tell you what was hidden inside.

It was the perfect ending to our book and one that was not planned but worked. My husband was impressed with the stuffed pumpkin and told me to remember what I did so I can do it again. So since I have put it on my blog, everyone can help me remember.

Do you plan meals around what you are learning?


Beth