The miniature pumpkins

While I was planning the garden for this past year, I decide to grow some squash by my neighbors deer fence. The plan was to trellis some of the acorn and butternut squash up the 8ft high fence. After getting permission from my neighbor,  I grabbed my small flat shovel with the sharpened edge to remove grass in a 2ft wide by about 20yd long strip along the fence. I ended up digging down about 5 inches into the ground. I then grabbed a bunch of twigs, brush and leaves I had laying around, threw it into the trench, and piled about 2 feet of compost over top the brush.
The compost I used was leftover from when I opened a larger garden area. The compost was bought from a local supplier.
Now the new bed was ready, so in went some squash seeds along with some dill, nasturtiums and a black krim tomato plant. The squash came up quickly as usual. I then noticed a squash type plant growing at the base of the mounded bed everything else was growing in. I assumed it was a seed I dropped when planting, so I decided to let it be.
Soon the female flowers started showing their beautiful faces. The female flowers on the out of place plant looked different from the others. It looked like a tiny round pumpkin, but how was that possible? I didn't plant any pumpkins down here. I decided to hand pollinated a few female flowers to make sure I got some production out of the mystery plant. I soon discovered the identity of the mysterious squash. It was a miniature pumpkin, also known as the Jack Be Little pumpkin.
The seed must have been in the compost I bought. Cool, now what do I do with these mini pumpkins, besides using them for decorations?  After a quick search on the web, I found a cool recipe for them. Never knew you could eat these decorative pumpkins.
So here is the recipe.
1 mini pumpkin
A large pinch of cinnamon and nutmeg, or allspice. Another interesting spice to try is garam masala
A pinch salt and pepper
1 tsp butter
1 tbsp  apple juice or your choice of fruit juice
And 1 tsp maple syrup or honey
Pre-heat oven to 375, cut a circle (or 5-6 sided) cap around the stem. Remove the cap, and with a small spoon, remove all the seeds. Put in the spices, and all the other ingredients into the pumpkin. Gently put the cap back on and bake for 30 minutes, (larger ones can take up to 45min) or until the inside becomes a little creamy.
I like to scrape all the flesh off the inside of the skin and mix everything up inside the pumpkin. Enjoy!