Dinner in a pumpkin

This was part of our dinner on Halloween.  I love to do fun holiday things with my food.  Not as into making sweets at Halloween, but the food is fun.  This recipe is from the book of recipes my sister Karley typed up for me.  Yea!  I actually really liked it.  I've had it for left overs for lunch for the last 2 days.  I even liked eating the pumpkin but no one else in my family thought it could possibly be eaten.
Warning: follow the directions and cook this on a cookie sheet so you don't make a mess of your oven.  Especially if your 4 year old decided to be helpful and stab holes in the bottom of the pumpkin - even if they don't look like they went through, they will weaken the bottom of the pumpkin causing it to turn a bit soupy making a mess of the oven and resulting in difficulties when trying to remove the pumpkin from the oven.
I would also suggest if drawing a face to come armed with multiple sharpies.  I got eyes on mine before it decided it was done writing on pumpkin.  There is a faint nose and mouth, but they are very faint.  Should have looked for more sharpies.
I also think this could easily be made in a casserole dish if you don't want to use a pumpkin.
You get 2 pictures 1 of the pumpkin - you can see how it was seeping, and one of the dish on a plate to see what the insides looked like.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 lbs ground meat (I used a 1 lb container of my pre-cooked ground beef)
• 1/2 cup chopped celery (I used 2 stalks)
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1/4 cup diced green pepper (I used 1/2 a red bell pepper - more than 1/4 cup.)
• 1 teaspoon salt (I didn't add any because my pre-cooked beef has some already.)
• 1 small or medium pumpkin (mine was the smallest I could find, but still rather large)
• 1 10.5 oz. can cream of chicken soup
• 1 4 oz can sliced mushrooms, drained
• 2 cups cooked rice
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar

Directions

1. Make rice (I did mine in the rice cooker.)  Brown ground meat, drain (or if using pre-cooked defrost 2 minutes and put in the skillet.)  Add salt (if using) celery, onion, and green (or red) pepper.  Cover and simmer 10 minutes.  
2. While that simmers, Cut top off pumpkin and clean out seeds and pulp.  Make sure there is room for your pumpkin in the oven.  I had to remove 1 rack and move the other to the bottom.  Preheat oven to 375.  
3. Return to simmering beef mixture and add soy sauce, brown sugar, mushrooms, soup, and rice.  Stir to combine.  Place mixture in pumpkin and replace lid.  
4. Draw a face with a black marker (or 2.)  Place filled pumpkin on a baking sheet and bake 1 hour or until pumpkin is tender.