In the age-old fairy tale, turning into a pumpkin at midnight is frowned upon. This year at Thanksgiving, however, when you turn the centerpiece of your meal into a magically stuffed Cinderella pumpkin, you can be sure that your holiday guests will wonder which fairy godmother swooped in to prepare it.
Pumpkins can be so much more than a side dish or dessert. Especially for those of us who choose a vegetarian or vegan celebration, they can be a photo-worthy centerpiece, a savory and delicious main course. The beauty of the stuffed pumpkin is that you can fill it with anything your heart desires. If you need some inspiration, look no further than your local tailgate market for flavors and colors that will appeal to your guests and your own palace―er, palate.
Chue Lee of Lee’s One Fortune Farm has Cinderella pumpkins now, though many other farms have winter squash of all shapes and sizes right now. Choose the one that best suits your aesthetic and tastes. Acorn or buttercup squashes are both nice options to fill or to cook into your stuffing. Instead of the meat-heavy Turducken? You can have acorumpkins or a butterkinacorn! Find Lee’s One Fortune Farm at ASAP, Black Mountain, West Asheville, and River Arts District markets.
After selecting your pumpkin vessel, browse the market for local garlic, onions, kale, mushrooms, goat or vegan cheeses, bread, or fennel—the list goes on and on. Find local goat cheeses from Three Graces Dairy (ASAP, North, or West Asheville markets) and Spinning Spider Creamery (North Asheville and River Arts District markets). Get vegan cheese from Darë Vegan Cheese (River Arts District Farmers Market).
Back in the kitchen with all your local favorites, you can begin to prepare your pumpkin. Unless you have a magic wand, you’ll need some time to scrape the seeds out (setting them aside to roast later!) and clean out the cavity. Once cleaned, brush the inside of the pumpkin in olive oil or butter and 1 ½ teaspoons of salt. Return the tops to their rightful place. Place the pumpkin on a parchment-lined pan and par-roast for one hour in the oven at 350 degrees. If you are going to mash an acorn or other squash as part of your filling, roast it at the same time.
While the pumpkin is roasting, sauté your other ingredients in some olive oil and salt, spicing it to your preference. Favorite holiday spices like cloves and cinnamon can work in savory dishes, too! We like to start with the onion, garlic, and fennel. Then add mushrooms and kale, cooking just until it begins to wilt.
Next you’ll assemble all your ingredients inside your pumpkin. We like to layer the different ingredients, sort of like lasagna, until you’ve filled it up. You can also mix everything together in a bowl and then scoop it out evenly across the pumpkins. Finally, top it all with your favorite mix of roasted seeds, bread crumbs, and cheese and return it to the oven for a final roasting. Once all the cheese on top has melted, you can return the tops for a few minutes to ensure everything is warm. We like to serve this centerpiece on a platter surrounded by local honey-glazed roasted beets and carrots for a little sweet and colorful addition.
At markets now you can also find turnips, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, potatoes, lettuce, and other hardy greens like collards, chard, and mustard. Markets are also stocked with farm-fresh eggs, rice, pasta, bread, pastries, drinks, and prepared foods. There are more than 100 farmers tailgate markets throughout the Appalachian Grown region. Find them, as well as farms and other local food businesses, in ASAP’s online Local Food Guide at appalachiangrown.org.
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Leadership Transition at ASAP
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After more than two decades serving farmers and the local food community, ASAP's longtime executive director Charlie Jackson will retire at the end of April 2022. Beginning Jan. 1, 2022, Molly Nicholie will become executive director of ASAP, and Charlie will shift to a strategic advisor role, working part-time to assist in the transition and planning.
Charlie is a founder of what would become ASAP in the mid-1990s. Anticipating dramatic changes coming to agriculture with the end of tobacco as a dominant crop, a group of farmers and others formed to address these challenges. They launched a local food campaign in 2000 and ASAP officially incorporated as a nonprofit organization in 2002. Next year is ASAP's 20th anniversary!
Read the full press release here.
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ASAP's mission is to help local farms thrive, link farmers to markets and supporters, and build healthy communities through connections to local food.
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Mountain Xpress and The Laurel of Asheville point shoppers to holiday farmers markets for local gifts this season. "Worries over disrupted supply chains and backed-up shipping channels are adding to the normal holiday stress load," writes the Mountain Xpress. "The Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project suggests dialing back the noise by shopping local, where all the goods and goodies are at the tip of your fingers, ready to put in your reusable bag and take home."
Mountain Xpress talks to local pastry chefs to get tips for Thanksgiving pie-making. Says Kelsianne Bebout, pastry chef for All Souls Pizza, “Instead of using basic 100% white Appalachian flour, I add a portion of a specialty flour like buckwheat, spelt or rye. One of the pies I’m making for Thanksgiving will be a flour collaboration between Gaining Ground Farm and Farm & Sparrow that is a really pretty gray-blue color.”
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