As a single cook, I’m constantly on the hunt for mini baking dishes. So far, I’ve come up fairly dry — until yesterday. I was browsing thekitchn.com and I stumbled upon an idea to hollow out mini pumpkins and use them as ramekins or mini baking dishes. When you can’t buy it, make it!

My head starting spinning with ideas — baked oatmeal, sausage and apple casserole, pumpkin blondies, pumpkin pie; I could go on and on. For baked oatmeal, just follow my recipe here, and use the hollowed out pumpkin instead of a ramekin. As for the other recipes, I’ll start with one and add others over the next few weeks. So stay tuned!

Tip: If you can’t find a small baking dish for single servings, or if you just want a really great presentation, hollow out a mini pumpkin and use it as a ramekin, pie plate, or casserole dish.

Recipe: Sausage and apple stuffed mini pumpkin
Serves one

1 Tbsp cooking oil
1/4 cup sweet or spicy Italian sausage, casing removed
1/4 of a tart red apple, unpeeled, cored, and diced (try Roma or Braeburn)
1 tsp finely chopped shallot (or sweet onion)
1 Tbsp dried cranberries
1/8 tsp dried sage
1/8 tsp salt or seasoned salt
Dash dried thyme
Dash dried parsley
Dash pepper
Dash ground nutmeg

Cut top off of mini pumpkin, and scrape out seeds. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Heat oil in a medium skillet. Crumble sausage and brown it with the apples. Add celery and shallots, and cook till shallots are translucent. Combine sausage, apples, celery, and shallots in a bowl with the remaining ingredients.

Fill pumpkin with mixture, and place it in a larger casserole dish. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.