BellaOnline Forums Food and Wine Cooking For Kids Make the Most Out of this Year's Pumpkin!

We do pumpkins every year but usually just throw out all of the insides. There is a good blog post on Scott Common Sense that has some great ideas for how to use all of the pumpkin so nothing has to go to waste. Anyone have any good pumpkin recipes they can share that might also work?

Well, the pumpkins we get from the grocery store are grown specifically for jack-o-lanterns so they have thick rinds with less pumpkin flesh. The cooking pumpkins are smaller with thin rinds and thick layers of flesh.

Last year, I gave our jack-o-lanterns to a woman who was raising turkeys and chickens. They relished the pumpkins!

Another thing I did one year was to cut up the jack-o-lanterns and put them into my vermi-composting bin. The worms took care of the recycling for me!

But when I do cook pumpkin, I peel, chunk and steam it. Then I puree it for delicious soup! You can use the cooked pumpkin for all sorts of recipes like pumpkin muffins with cream cheese frosting or as a filling (with some Parmesan cheese and pine nuts) for ravioli.

Roasted pumpkin is delicious if you sprinkle with olive oil, garlic salt and onion salt and let it carmelize a bit. Be careful not to overcook it or it will turn mushy. Top with toasted and seasoned pumpkin seeds for a great side dish.

MMM.

Thanks for starting such a fun thread!

Roasted pumpkin seeds are so much fun, because you can make them a million ways. I talk about a few of the ways in this week's article:

Halloween Party Snack Ideas

Do you enjoy pumpkin pie? I've never made pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin, only from canned.

Has anyone used a real pumpkin instead of canned for pumpkin pie?

I never made pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin because I heard that it's hard to tell if the pumpkin will yield dense flesh or more watery flesh. So, I just use the canned pumpkin!