Recipe(tried): Pumpkin Stew

Have you tried making beef stew in a smaller pumpkin? I found a nice recipe in Taste of Home a couple years ago, and it was eaten(I really liked it, myself), but the next time I just used my own beef stew recipe, and put it into the pumpkin. Normally, we don't add tomatoes in our stew. Here's their recipe:

PUMPKIN STEW

2 lbs beef stew meat, cut in 1-inch cubes
3 Tbsp. cooking oil, divided use
1 cup water
3 large potatoes, peeled and cut in 1-inch cubes
4 medium carrots, sliced
1 large green pepper, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 medium onion, chopped
2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground black pepper
2 Tbsp. instant beef bouillon granules
1 (14.5 oz.) can tomatoes, cut up and undrained
1 (10-12 lb.) pumpkin

Brown meat in 2 Tbsp. oil. Add water, potatoes, carrots, green pepper, onion, garlic, salt and pepper; cover and simmer 2 hours.

Stir in bouillon and tomatoes.

Wash pumpkin; cut a 6-8-inch circle around top stem. Remove top and set aside; discard seeds(actually, I believe in roasting them, especially if you grow the hull-less seeded pumpkins) and loose fibers from inside. Place pumpkin in sturdy shallow baking pan (I used bottom of broiler pan). Spoon stew into pumpkin and replace top. Brush outside of pumpkin with remaining oil.

Bake pumpkin at 325 degrees F for 2 hours or just until the pumpkin is tender (do not overbake).

Serve stew from pumpkin, scooping out a little pumpkin with each serving.

8-10 servings.

Would be great hit at a fall party, with cider and baked apples. The recipe was submitted by a Donna Mosher of Montana. Now I have a question for you: Do you grow your own pumpkins and squash? I try every year, but only had a bug-free crop the first year. Do you blast yours with sprays, or burn the garden each year or cover? I have tried spraying but usually they have already started in by then. Row cover was quickly outgrown; burning never gets accomplished because I still have tomatoes out there in Oct. and I hate to waste them.