Here’s a happy start to the day, especially for Marysville reader Deb McGrath, who had sent out a desperate plea for help. Her treasured recipe for a tapioca concoction baked in a pumpkin – shock, dismay and horror – had gone missing.
Once again, and is almost without exception the case, Forum cooks rushed to her rescue. Since time is short, and space is limited here today, we’ll start with the first recipe to come in. It also sounds like an exact match for the one McGrath’s so hoping for, and it comes to us thanks to Camano Island cook Georgia Tecca. She tells us she found it in on the Internet (at www.rnews.com/food/print), and not only e-mailed it to us in a flash, but is sending along another backup copy by snail mail.
Way to go, Georgia! Now we can all make:
Pudding in a pumpkin
1pumpkin, pie type, 3-4 pounds
2tablespoons granulated sugar
1teaspoon ground cinnamon
Filling:
3eggs
2cups milk
1cup granulated sugar
Pinch salt
3tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca
2teaspoons vanilla extract
Cinnamon for pudding topping
Vanilla ice cream (optional)
Cut top off pumpkin as for a jack-o-lantern; scoop out seeds. Mix together the 2 tablespoons sugar and cinnamon, drop into pumpkin and coat the inside. Place pumpkin in a pie plate and bake with lid on at 350 degrees 35 to 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, for the filling, in a saucepan, whip eggs; add sugar, milk, salt, tapioca and vanilla. Stir constantly with a spatula until mixture thickens. Remove pumpkin from oven, remove the top and pour in the tapioca mixture. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon, and return filled pumpkin to oven (leave the lid off) and bake another 30 minutes. Remove pumpkin from oven, allow to cool for 10 minutes or so, then serve on a tray with the lid propped on the side of the pumpkin.
Be sure to scrape some of the interior sides of the pumpkin as you serve this dish. The earthy flavor of the pumpkin nicely complements tapioca. A small scoop of vanilla ice cream is also tasty on the side of the serving.
Note: Because package directions for quick-cooking tapioca pudding call for the egg-milk-sugar-tapioca mixture to stand for 5 minutes, then be heated to a boil, stirring constantly, and removed from heat (pudding will thicken on cooling, the directions suggest), the Forum wonders if the filling mixture given in the above recipe will actually thicken – with only the stirring called for – before it goes into the pumpkin. … Something to think about?
The next Forum will appear in Monday’s Time Out section.
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