Country Living in a Cariboo Valley

Homesteading in BC

  • How to Get Started
  • Vegetable Gardening
  • Preserving Food
  • Recipes
  • Homemade Wine Recipes
  • About Us
  • Work With Me
  • Shop
    • Vegetable Garden Planner Printable: Grow Your Best Garden Ever
    • Grow Enough Food for a Year
    • Delicious Dandelions: A Recipe Collection
    • Dirt to Dollars: Selling at the Farmers Market
    • 8 Pounds in 8 Weeks: Raising Chicks for the Dinner Table
    • Making Wild Wine
    • Build a Hanging Chicken Feeder
    • 15 Things to Know About Living in the Country

Baking Your Halloween Pumpkin!

By Annie

This post contains affiliate links. If you buy through these links, I may earn a small commission.

What do you do with your Halloween pumpkin once the day passes? Some people toss them into their compost pile, others simply throw them in the garbage can.

But why not think about baking your Halloween pumpkin?

 

 

 

Some communities have a Pumpkin road, some long road out in the outskirts where people bring all their Pumpkins to dot the sides of the roads.

That looks pretty cool and it becomes a tradition in these towns.

 

Families drive together down the road and look at all the pumpkins; at night, some are even lit. The pumpkins will decompose or provide food for wildlife.

pumpkin on a front porch

 

Since we don’t have a pumpkin road, I’m going to take our Pumpkin and turn it into pie – it’s not hard to do. We didn’t carve out our Pumpkin this year, so there is no candle wax dripping down all over the inside.

I would never use a carved out Pumpkin that held a candle to turn into Pumpkin Pie.

Instead, I used a black Sharpie and just drew the face on. I’m not very artistically gifted, so his face is pretty basic.

I like him, although he does have a couple dental problems.

 

 

baskets of pumpkins for sale at market

 

Remember too, grocery stores will put all their “leftover” pumpkins on sale this week.

If you have the time, buy  6 or 8 if you can get a great price on them. Then get started preserving them for using over winter.

 

Why you want to bake your Pumpkin

 

Mostly, for the convenience. Set aside an afternoon and that morning, put them in the oven. In the afternoon,  process all them.

You’ll be done before dinner and have several bags of pumpkin puree in the freezer.

 

How to Bake a Pumpkin

Cut a “cap” out of the top of the pumpkin, using a large sharp knife. You will want a large enough hole, so you can get inside and scrape out all the pulp and seeds.

I like to use a large, heavy metal spoon to scrape the sides and the floor of the pumpkin.

You could also cut the pumpkin in half, much like you would a squash. Either way, once it is all scraped out, put it in an oven set at 350F.

Let it bake for awhile.

 

large chunks of pumpkin right out of the oven

 

The time needed to bake really depends on the size of your pumpkin. Large pumpkins can take a couple of hours to cook all the way through.

Once the Pumpkin is soft and mushy, it’s ready. Test it by poking a fork in it.

Remove the pumpkins from the oven and let them cool. Then, just cut or break them apart. Scrape all the flesh into a bowl.

Throw out the outer skin. You will have already removed all the stringy stuff and seeds, so this part of the process is very quick and easy.

Use the Pumpkin flesh to make a pie, cookies or a loaf or eat it as a side dish with dinner.

 

bags of pureed pumpkin sit on the counter ready for the freezer

 

To preserve some, just fill Ziplock bags, remove the air and pop in the freezer. I like to freeze mine in quantities for making Pumpkin Loaf or Pumpkin Pie.

 

a pumpkin on a baking sheet and a bowl of pumpkin puree with a spoon

And why not set six seeds aside and plant them next year for Pumpkins in the garden?

 

 

 

 

Want to find out which are The 5 Easiest Vegetables to Grow?

Grab the free download available only to subscribers!

 

Just click to Share

878 shares
  • Share
  • Tweet

Filed Under: Recipes Tagged With: Grow Vegetables

Connect With Us!

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter

Search this site

Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
Search in posts
Search in pages

Our Most Popular Posts

How to Preserve Garlic in Oil – and Other Ways to Store Garlic

a open jar of pickled brussel sprouts on a counter

Easy Pickled Brussels Sprouts Recipe (Water Bath Canning)

Privacy Policy

Read about our Privacy Policy

Disclosure

Please note that some of this site’s links are affiliate links, and CountryLivinginaCaribooValley.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. At NO ADDITIONAL COST TO YOU, I will earn a small commission, if you purchase them. I recommend them as they are good products.

Theme Design By Studio Mommy · Copyright © 2023