Stuffed pumpkin with Oriental spices

 A healthy comfort food that warms you up as it contains ginger, cinnamon and cardamom etc., and looks beautiful too on a party table in winter. I think, I will make it again for Christmas. Serves maybe 4-6.

Stuffed pumpkin for Halloween

1 whole pumpkin about 20-25cm diameter or more

2 tablespoons Raisins
1 tablespoon pine seeds
1 half banana
1 half apple (Jonathan or boskop is better)
A bit of lemon peel
1/2 sweet potato
1 carrot
1 handful of boiled chestnuts
1/2 cup of mixed boiled beans (chickpeas, red beans, peas…)
2 baby onions (sharlot)
1/2 cup of brown mushrooms

1/2-2/3 cups of jasmine rice and brown rice (and wild rice if you like)

4cm of ginger root
1 cinnamon stick, cinnamon powder
Star anis (2-3 stars)
1 teaspoon of cloves, clove powder
1/2 teaspoon Baharat (Arabic spice mixture, you can make your own e.g. recipe here: www.geocities.com/umhajar/baharat.html, it repeats some of the other spices but this way you can adjust the taste)
Cayenne pepper
2 piment seeds (allspice)
2 sprigs of fresh thyme
Cardamom powder
2-3 teaspoons of brown sugar
1/8 l sweet cream

Boil the rice
Chop all the vegetables and fruits into small slices or cubes
Heat butter or oil in pot, sautee the mushrooms with the onions and pine seeds
Add carrot and sweet potato and turn down heat to small
Add beans and spices, raisins, sugar
Add some water to prevent burning
When vegetables are semi-soft, add cream
Boil slowly for another 5 minutes or so
Add rice, mix well

Preheat oven to 175 C

Cut off the top of the pumpkin, remove seeds and fiber
brush the inside with butter
Spoon the mixture into the pumpkin, replace top as a lid

Place pumpkin on baking dish or alu-foil
Bake for about 75 minutes

**the vegetable can be varied, you can also add chopped nuts and/or cranberries or other dried fruit or leave out the cream and replace the butter by oil to make it vegan