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Talk to me about pumpkins
I L-O-V-E pumpkin. I eat pumpkin everything. Last year I ventured out to try cooking my own whole pumpkin instead of buying the canned stuff and it was great...but they are pretty pricy.
So I was doing some reading today and found several sites where people said they eat the big ones. Is that OK to do? I mean as halloween gets closer you can sometimes get them for $1 or less and I could have a mass pumpkin cooking and freezing and have good pumpkin all year. I even found a few who said they carve their pumpkins, put them out and after halloween they cook and eat them...which I found to be a little discusting and I wouldn't do but interesting none-the-less. Do they not have bugs there? My pumpkins always get bugs.
Part 2 of my inquiry. I'm wondering if anyone has ideas for "greening" pumpkin usage. I'm doing an article for our company newsletter and would love to have a few more ideas. So far I'm talking about composting after the holiday, decorating with marker or paint so you can peel and eat later, buying reusable decorations like wooden or cloth, and a few ideas for repurposing plastic pumpkin treat baskets.
Re: Talk to me about pumpkins
I lightly cook the jack-o-lanterns after (but its cold here, so they are sort of stored) and stick them in the food processor and give to the dogs (bit by bit).
Oh and no, we don't have a lot of bugs here.
How about buying locally grown and/or organic pumpkins?
That should have been an obvious one -- thank you!
Love that you feed it to your dogs
I wouldn't eat a carved pumpkin that's left out 24/7. Everyplace I lived before was either too warm or had too many bugs. Now that I live someplace that's probably cold enough to keep the pumpkin good, I still wouldn't eat it because slugs like to hang out in the punkins.
I have heard of people putting their pumpkins in their fridge except for a few hours at night when they're lit, though. If there's space in the fridge that might be more reassuring for people?
I think mentioning composting is a great idea, and using all parts of the pumpkin if possible. If you have seed roasting tips or some good recipes people might like to try something new.
Also, he downside that I can come up with for cooking up really large pumpkins is whacking them down to size. It's hard enough to carve out pieces, so if you had tips about how to do that people might appreciate them.
I cook a bunch of pumpkins every fall and freeze the puree for soups and pies. Here's what I do:
Buy pie pumpkin or ask if I can eat the colorful pumpkins from the Farmer's Market. There's an ugly gray one that's particularly delicious, I have no idea what it's called. Pie pumpkins look like Halloween pumpkins, but they're smaller and more flavorful. I don't know if you can eat Halloween pumpkins, I've never tried. Cut out the top like you would for a Halloween pumpkin, and scoop out the seeds and stringy bits. Reserve seeds to roast later. Rub inside of pumpkin lightly with salt. Place whole pumpkin on a baking sheet, and bake at 350 until knife slides in easily, usually 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Let cool, and peel. Cut into chunks and smash pumpkin with a potato masher and freeze in 2 cup increments (what my recipes usually call for) in plastic bags.
It takes a little effort, but I usually do 2-3 small pumpkins in an afternoon which gives me enough puree to last all year. Fresh and local, and tastes so.much.better than cans, which are grown in monocultures. Alisha has great info about the pumpkin monoculture failures over the past 3 years.
To keep decorated Halloween pumpkins fresh I do put them in the fridge. I tried that "stay-fresh" pumpkin spray from Home Depot last year and it was nasty, please don't use it. I'm really excited about the non-carving black metal decorations I bought this year. I got the bats and the cat.
I really like them, and they're a great price at 2 for $10. I wasn't sure if I'd get around to carving a pumpkin this year, but I wanted to decorate my pile of adorable Farmer's Market front yard pumpkins somehow. FYI, that company takes awhile to ship so I would do 2-day shipping or something similar if you want them this Halloween.
I used Ziploc freezer bags last year that I squeezed all the air out and they worked fine. We have a FoodSaver now, which is seriously the best food preserving invention ever. We'll see how it does on semi-liquid things like pumpkin puree.
I did this last yr. and froze a bunch of it, so no pumpkin shortage for me!
I used mostly pie pumpkins and some medium size carving pumpkins. I could not taste a difference in them but I just used them in things, if I made a pumpkin pie I would have just used pie pumpkins. They were a pain in the but to cut the larger ones, I used a cleaver and rubber mallet.
There is NO WAY I would use a pumpkin after carving it. They usually get moldy
I love pumpkin seeds, and you can actually roast seeds from any squash in case you didn't know. I roast the seeds from acorn squash, or whatever other squash I use as well. If you don't want to roast them right away, because some squash doesn't really yield enough seeds to make it worth it, you can freeze them and roast them later.
I'm not picky about removing every last bit of pulp around the seeds. With some types of squash, I'll just toss the whole mess down on the pan and let the pulp roast away.
My "recipe" (I'm not that into following recipes):
Preheat oven - suggested temps range between 300 and 400 degrees, so I go with 350F
Spread olive oil on baking sheet and spread seeds on top
Season with whatever you like. I often use salt and paprika. You may want to toss it around with your fingers a bit to incorporate the seasonings.
Roast on the top rack for 10-15 minutes.
Let them cool and start snacking. If you have more willpower than me, you can store them in an airtight container for about a week.
We grew pumpkins this year and I roasted all of them, big and small, then pureed and froze.
I just roasted the bigger ones a lot longer and tasted before I froze. Our garden ones are pretty sweet. I did buy one from the grocery store, and it needed to be sweetened a bit, so I mixed in a little pure maple syrup.