Pumpkins!
/My son-in-law held his annual pumpkin carving event the weekend before Halloween. My daughter doesn’t carve but she does help with buying the carload of pumpkins - one for each person in his research group (almost filling the back of the car).
This year it was raining on the evening the carving was done so the party was moved from outside into their garden room – with a big tarp on the floor to help with clean up later. The students picked the seeds out of the pumpkin guts and roasted them while they carved. The finished carvings were, as usual, spectacular. My son-in-law did the spider one which he later entered in a pumpkin carving contest at the local climbing gym and won a $50 prize!
The student that carved the Yoda pumpkin didn’t have a place to display it, so it stayed with the spider pumpkin through Halloween. A day or so after Halloween, the squirrels started eating the carved pumpkins; the first part to be eaten was one of the Yoda ears.
Meanwhile, there were two uncarved pumpkins left after the carving night. I took one to Carrollton and cooked it the Sunday before Halloween; it was so big I had to cut the top off to fit it into the oven! I made pumpkin soup (topped with pumpkin seeds that I roasted) and then pumpkin cake (made in muffin pans). The pumpkin soup was easy and yummy: pumpkin, picante, canned chicken, arugula…topped with pumpkin seeds and a sprinkle of Everything Bagel seasoning.
I still have a lot of pumpkin puree to use; most of it is in the freezer. The second pumpkin will be cooked in a few days – also will be processed and headed for the freezer. I am enjoying that we have a second refrigerator in our house to store the winter’s supply of pumpkin puree!
