WHAT TO DO WITH THAT HALLOWE'EN Pumpkin

 So you gave in to the kids and bought a couple of pumpkins. And you only carved one. What to do with the rest? Turn them into pumpkin bread, pumpkin butter, pumpkin pies!!

Here is the step by step guide to processing pumpkins. First of all, the Hallowe'en pumpkin that was carved should go directly to the trash can if you live in an apartment or chop it up and turn it under in the garden or add to the compost pile.

Take your whole pumpkins that haven't been carved and use those.

• Cut the pumpkin up. As you cut it up into manageable pieces you can scrape off the strings and seeds into a bowl. We will get to them later.
• Place the pumpkin pieces, cut side down onto a cookie sheet. Once the cookie sheet is full, bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees. Then test with a fork. If it doesn't seem to be soft enough, give it about 10 minutes more. It should be as soft as squash or potato.
• Take from oven, and let cool on pan. Usually - depending on the size of your pumpkins of course, you will have more than one cookie sheet of pumpkin to cook. You can put two cookie sheets in the oven at a time as long as half way through the baking you rotate the sheets for even baking and less chance of burning.
• Once the pumpkin has cooled, cut the skin off the pieces. This will be very easy but messy. Keep a cloth handy.
• Now the pumpkin is ready to be run through your food processor. You can do this now, or you can keep it wrapped in the fridge for a day or so.
• Once the pumpkin has been put through the food processor you can pack it into containers and freeze. It will keep well for months in the freezer. Do not however pack it into plastic bags. It is messy to remove and you lose a lot of the pumpkin.  I pack mine into 2 cup containers which is the perfect amount for one pie.
• The seeds:  Don't throw these away. They make for good eating. Pull as much of the strings out of the seeds, then rinse the seeds with water. You can dry them slightly with a paper towel. Put the seeds onto a cookie sheet, add 1 - 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and mix through the seeds. Sprinkle with salt.
• Bake for 7 or 8 minutes at 350 degrees. Then stir the seeds around. Bake for another 7 minutes. Watch carefully, they might burn.
• Remove from oven and allow to cool before bagging in zip lock bags. These are great for lunch bags.

                                                                         Pumpkin Butter