Musquee de Provence: The Prettiest Pumpkin

What exquisitely defined lobes! The musquee de Provence is a very pretty pumpkin on the outside but nothing prepared me for this:

Wow, I don’t think I have ever seen this color on anything before. The cooked flesh separates into strands like spaghetti squash and is richly flavored with hints of tangerine and pistachio. The texture and juiciness make this an ideal pumpkin for stuffing. And so easy on the eyes. This just might be the Julia Roberts of Squash.

Musquee de Provence Pumpkin for Stuffing

Scrub your pumpkin all over and put it into an appropriately-sized ovenproof dish. Place the dish on a sheet pan in case of any irrational exuberance, and put the pumpkin in the oven. Bake at 375 for about an hour and a half, depending on the size of your pumpkin (this one was 14 pounds). Remove the pumpkin from the oven, and when it is cool enough to handle, cut out a lid. Pour out any fluid that may have accumulated during baking and scoop out the seeds and inner fibers. Salt the inside of the shell and the lid, and fill the stuffing or dressing of your choice, like herbed hominy stuffing, or coconut cornbread stuffing. This time I made chestnut stuffing, to be posted very soon, no solemn vow implied. Spoon the filling in gently, and resist valiantly the impulse to tamp it down. You can bake the remaining out-of-pumpkin stuffing on its own. Return the stuffed pumpkin to the oven and bake another hour or so.

The vibrant color of this pumpkin indicate a rich store of carotene and anthocyanin. Sweetnicks will provide links to more of these life-giving antioxidants.
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