Quinta-Filled Baked Pumpkin
Serves 6 for appetizer
1 small pumpkin (1-1.5#), top cut off and reserved, seeds removed
1 wheel Point Reyes Quinta
Fresh baked baguette slices
Preheat oven 350°.
Place Quinta in freezer for 15 minutes. (This will firm it up enough so you can easily remove the spruce bark later.)
Place prepared pumpkin on sheet pan (with the pumpkin top on) and par bake for 35-40 minutes, until a fork easily pierces the flesh inside the pumpkin. Remove pumpkin from oven.
While pumpkin is baking, prepare Quinta. Remove cheese from freezer, unwrap, remove and discard bay leaf. With a paring knife, carefully cut through the spruce bark at one point on the outside of the wheel. Pry up a corner of the cut bark and unwrap from the wheel. (You might have to cut in a few places to get all the bark off.) Discard bark. Tear or cut Quinta (including the bloomy white rind) into small pieces and put inside the pumpkin. Place the lid on the pumpkin.
Return stuffed pumpkin to the oven and cook for an additional 15-20 minutes, stirring every 5-7 minutes, so the cheese melts evenly. Once cheese is melted and bubbly, remove pumpkin from oven and place on a serving platter.
Just before serving, remove the pumpkin lid and stir the cheese and cooked pumpkin together inside the pumpkin shell, gently scraping the cooked pumpkin into the cheese as you stir. Serve hot with fresh baguette slices.
