5 Ways to Fully Use a Pumpkin

Here are 5 ways to fully use a pumpkin, along with my tips and warnings now that I have experienced doing it myself.

The key to conquering my pumpkin fears was that I was given a free pumpkin. I felt liberated, what could be wasted with a free pumpkin. Okay, sure, maybe my time and energy but I felt the moment had arrived for me to try. After being given the pumpkin, I nodded my head and rubbed my palms together in eager anticipation. I had plans for this pumpkin. This pumpkin under my care was going to reach its full potential.

1. Decorate with the pumpkin.

My pumpkin sat displayed with other Halloween decorations, adding color and ambiance to the Halloween atmosphere.

2. Roast the pumpkin seeds.

I read up on pumpkins and looked for recipe ideas at Allrecipes.com.

I covered my counter in plastic garbage bags and clothed myself in an apron. I started cutting with the tiny pumpkin carving knife you can typically buy in a kit at a dollar store. I had thought I would start small and work up to a bigger, more expensive knife, but my little knife worked great.

My mistake was arbitrarily deciding to liberally oil the pan. After my seeds were roasted I tried degreasing them with a paper towel and eventually much of the excess oil came off. My tip for myself next year will be to skip the oil and just spray the baking sheet.

3. Bake the pumpkin.

Here I debated if I could really bake the pumpkin for such a long time, at times it smelled liked it was overcooking but in my case it needed the long time of baking and wouldn't have been cooked enough had I jerked it out early.

4. Make pumpkin soup.

I did not want to be comparing canned pumpkin taste to fresh pumpkin, so instead of a Thanksgiving dessert I tried making a pumpkin soup. I am an experimenter when it comes to cooking. So in sizing up my available ingredients ahead of time, I thought sour cream would be the perfect touch to my soup but thinking dairy should be added at the end was my mistake for this also random decision. Although I do not regret my choice of ingredient, my tip for next year will be to put the sour cream in before I blend my soup, thereby eliminating my somewhat less than charming white specks in my otherwise orange-ish soup.

5. Freeze leftover pumpkin.

I would freeze leftover pumpkin puree for future use. You can then later make the pumpkin into more soup and eat it in the weeks to come.