Now What Do You Do?

  Ok, Halloween is over,  The little ones in costumes who come trick or treating are gone and its time to take all those decorations down.  You have a couple of pumpkins you cut up for that perfect look.  The question is one we all face. What do we do with the pumpkins we carved?

For some folks, they toss it in the compost but for others like me, we bake the pumpkin and freeze it until thanksgiving when we use it in our pumpkin pies.  This is not all you can do with the pumpkin when you are done with it. 

Here are 10 ways you can use your pumpkin.

1.  Make pumpkin puree which you can use in a pie, muffins, with your oatmeal, in breads, and in tons of other ways.  All you do is cook it either by baking, boiling, or steaming and mush up the innards.  If you burned a candle, just scrape or cut out the bad parts and use the rest of the pumpkin.

2.  Make your very own Pumpkin Spice Latte with real pumpkin.  Mix together milk, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, a tsp of pumpkin puree, and sweeter in a pan and heat till steamy.  Pull off the heat and either use a frother or blender to turn the milk into a great froth, then mix with coffee.

3.  How about a Pumpkin Lasagna using a spiced pumpkin sauce made of pumpkin puree, cream, and spices.  Prepare as usual with veggies instead of meat and voila!

4. What about making a pumpkin butter out of pumpkin puree, apple juice brown sugar, and spices.  Cook till done.

5.  Roasted pumpkin seeds are great.  Clean and dry the seeds, place on a cookie sheet, gently rub in a little bit of oil, add seasonings and bake at 325 degrees for about 10 minutes.

6. Add the stringy parts around the seeds to a water with other scraps of vegetables to make a stock you can use in just about anything.

7. Cut the stringy guts into small pieces and use instead of pumpkin puree in the pumpkin bread recipe.

8.  Cook pumpkin chunks with vinegar and other spices till just fork tender and can to make pumpkin pickles.

9. You can always dry the skin into crispy chips to eat as you want.

10. Turn the pumpkin into a planter by planting a plant in it.

11.  Create a pumpkin face mask with honey, pumpkin puree, and milk.

12.  Have your own neighborhood pumpkin catapults to see who can send theirs the furthest.

These are only a few ways to use pumpkin after Halloween.  Enjoy yourselves trying a few of the ideas.  I plan to try the pumpkin face mask and the pumpkin lasagna.