Pork 'n Pumpkin Chili

For those of you who are getting to know me...I LOVE the holidays. Any holiday...I will go above and beyond to celebrate, in a classy way of course! :) When Fall arrives, which is my favorite time of the year, I love to cook with seasonal produce (aka pumpkins), watch scary movies, sip on Pumpkin Ale and submerge myself into the season.

The other day they had sugar pumpkins at the market so I grabbed three and a massive piece of pork butt to make some fabulous, comfort food.

Here's the recipe:

3 medium sugar pumpkins (or as many as people you have plus one extra for in the chili)
1 package of 15 bean soup (15 different kinds of uncooked beans, discard seasoning package)
5 lbs pork butt
1 bunch of mustard greens
5 cups of chicken stock
1 yellow onion
3 garlic cloves
salt
pepper
nutmeg

First I put the oven on 425 degrees and baked the pumpkins (after de-seeding the inside) for about an hour. Meanwhile I started slicing up the pork butt into inch cubed pieces. I placed my Dutch oven on the stove on medium heat and drizzled some olive oil inside. I chopped up the onion and garlic and let that saute for a few minutes, until golden. Then I added the chicken stock and beans. After cutting up the entire pork butt, I placed that into the chicken stock and cover for 30 minutes.

Once the pumpkin is tender the skin should peel off easily, chop up one of the pumpkins into one inch cubed pieces and add to the chili. (The other pumpkins are for serving in.) Add nutmeg, cook for another hour on low heat while stirring occasionally. In the last 10 minutes add chopped, mustard greens.

While chili is cooking, make the pumpkin-nutmeg cream sauce with:

1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp nutmeg
2 Tbsp pumpkin (from cooked pumpkin or canned pumpkin)
salt
pepper

Mix all ingredients up until smooth and refridgerate until serving. Once beans are tender and pork is cooked through then served the chili inside the sugar pumpkins and top with cream sauce.

If this recipe doesn't get you into the Halloween/Autumn mood, then I don't know what will...maybe put on Hocus Pocus while eating and sip on a Pumpkin Ale...that should do the trick!

xoxo Lo