Name: Mini pumpkin filled with cheddar and speck
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 1 h 10 min
Total time: 1 h 20 min
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 2 mini pumpkins; 3 slices of Italian speck; 1.5 cup of grated cheddar cheese; 2 tsp of pumpkin seeds; Salt and pepper; Olive oil; Arugula

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Walking down a quiet Parisian street, steps from our home, we developed this mini pumpkin filled with cheddar and speck. A tasty answer to the question “what’s for dinner?”.

Table of Contents

Are you wondering what you’re seeing in the photo? That’s…

A mini pumpkin
Grated cheddar cheese
Speck chips
Pumpkin seeds
Olive oil
Arugula
Our French 3 ingredient vinaigrette

The cheese-pumpkin combo is a win

We are not new to the whole cheese + pumpkin/squash = decadent and delicious dinner thing. We tried out this hypothesis when we made our sweet dumpling mini squash and raclette cheese and our cheesiest pumpkin mac and cheese. (Both successes by the way.)

Italian speck chips are the stew, pasta and soup topping you have been waiting for your whole life

Wait, what? What are speck chips? What is speck and how do you tranform it into chips?

Speck is an Italian smoked, cured ham. I don’t love heavily smoked meats typically (although I adore smoked salmon – weird, I know) but I have definitely gotten on board with the lightly smoked flavor of Italian speck.

We fell in love with speck during our recent trip to Italy. My mom brought us to a wonderful, family-run store brimming with cured meats, local pecorino (sheep’s milk cheeses) and homemade focaccia next to her home in Tuscany. We wanted to take it all in, try everything and then develop recipes for you using those fabulous ingredients as soon as we got home. This is the first of many Tuscan-inspired recipes to come.

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Making the speck chips

Making the speck chips could not be easier. All you have to do is line a baking tray with parchment paper, put the speck on the paper and pop it in the oven for 20 minutes. (I love recipes that require baking in the oven as they free up time to do something else. What will you do with your new free time? Drink a glass of wine with your love? Kiss your dog?)

Preparing the mini pumpkin(s)

Once your Italian speck chips are ready, you will be all set to put them aside and begin to prepare your mini pumpkins filled with cheese. Yum. Yum. Yum.

Once you’ve cut off the tops and scooped out the insides (this is starting to sound a little strange!), you will be ready to fill your mini pumpkins with grated cheddar cheese. After another 40 minutes of baking (more wine? more puppy kisses?), they will be ready to come out of the oven and be transferred to sweet little plates.

Putting together your mini pumpkin filled with cheddar and speck

To put everything together, break your speck chips into small pieces and sprinkle over the top of the open pumpkins, along with a handful of toasted pumpkin seeds.

Serve with arugula and drizzle with our fave 3 ingredient French vinaigrette.

Enjoy this Mini pumpkin filled with cheddar and speck!

What is your favorite pumpkin recipe?

Have you made this recipe? Tag us @ahedgehoginthekitchen.

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