Pumpkin lasagne stew

People in Japan love their pumpkins - it's delicious barbequed, pan-fried, or baked: the other day, I decided to try baked! This recipe is modified from one that Skittles sent me from her mother's cookbook; apparently the original uses butternut squash, but I have yet to find one of those in Japan, and pumpkin turned out to be a delicious (and cheap!) substitute.


Ingredients:

• ground meat
• 1/8 pumpkin, cut lengthwise in 1/2-inch strips (have a good, sharp knife - they're very hard to cut!)
• 1 bag mozzarella cheese (I got the kind that are a bunch of balls of cheese, but the block kind is fine, too)
• 1/2 can of "cut tomatoes"
• 1/2 an onion
• 4-5 shiitake mushrooms
• salt, pepper, oregano and parsley to taste

Brown meat in a little oil; set aside. Line bottom of rice cooker bowl with half of the pumpkin slices. Slice shiitake mushrooms and onions; use half to layer on top of pumpkin. Slice half the cheese and arrange on top of veggies.

Add some seasonings. Put meat on top of cheese. Add some salt. Spoon tomatoes over the meat until meat is evenly covered. Add the rest of the shiitake and onions; slice the rest of the cheese and put it on top of the shiitake and onions. Put the rest of the pumpkin slices on top. Spoon some more tomatoes on top.

Put it all in the rice cooker and press "cook rice". Wait until it's finished; pumpkin should be tender. Eat over rice or noodles - or all by itself, which is what I did!