Great Ideas For Leftover Pumpkin After Carving For Halloween

Or not! Interestingly enough leftover pumpkin is not essential – you could buy one just to make these recipes!

If you hollow out a pumpkin for carving you will have a lot of leftover pumpkin flesh and seeds that can easily be made into something delicious. (See here for how to carve a pumpkin thanks to Good Housekeeping – I particularly like point 11!)

Pumpkin Seeds

Don’t throw these away, apparently pumpkin seeds are really good for us human beings!

How to Roast Pumpkin Seeds

~   Bring a large pan of lightly salted water to the boil.
~   Rinse the seeds in a bowl of cold water, removing all the stringy stuff and pulp from the seeds.  Drain.
~   Add the drained seeds to the boiling water and cook for 8-10 minutes.
~   Drain well and pat dry with some kitchen roll.
~   Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4.
~   Toss them with a little olive oil to coat, sea salt and whatever seasoning you fancy (chilli, -curry powder, paprika – smoked or otherwise, black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, cayenne, garlic power, any mixed spice that you like such as curry powder and so on).
~   Spread on a baking sheet.
~   Bake for about 10 minutes till the seeds are golden.
~   Cool completely and store in an airtight container.

Use Roasted Pumpkin seeds thus …

Snack on them, mix into bread dough, sprinkle onto or mix into salads, hummus, soups, porridge, pasta, risotto, yogurt, granola and more.

How to Roast Pumpkin

I much prefer roasted pumpkin in most dishes so here’s how to do it …

~ Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.
~ Toss the diced or chopped pumpkin with olive oil (you need about 1 tablespoon per 750g pumpkin)
~  Season with salt and roast till golden and tender which will take about 40 minutes.

Recipes Using Roasted Pumpkin

Pumpkin & Roasted Garlic Soup

Serves 4

~   Toss with the sliced onions with the olive in a saucepan till hot. Turn down the heat, completely cover the onions with a piece of foil pressed onto their surface, put a lid on the pot and cook gently till utterly tender – 30 mins or so.  Read more about this, my favourite way ever to cook onions, here.
~   Peel and thinly slice the potato and when the onions are utterly tender add the potatoes together with the tender roasted pumpkin
~   Add enough stock to just cover the vegetables. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, cover and simmer till the potato is soft.
~   Add the roasted garlic to the soup and purée the whole lot till smooth.
~   Dilute if you think it needs it with a little hot stock or you could add some cream although it is perfectly delicious without. 
~   Taste and season – a little sea salt sprinkled on top is a definite advantage. I garnished this with homemade croutons and a little fresh sage.

Incidentally, if you are very peculiar and don’t like roasted garlic, this soup is also delicious with a little apple sauce stirred in to taste.

Roasted Pumpkin with Sweet Onion & Chilli

See this recipe for Roasted Butternut Squash with Sweet Onion and Chill and replace the squash with about 500g of pumpkin flesh.

Not only is this a fine side dish there are also other delicious ways to use it …

~ I often top piza with this it plus some shredded chorizo. Whether I use pumpkin or squash the cheese I add is always Garlic and Herb Boursin. I love it!!
~ Serve on Pasta
~ If you have some leftover over purée and mix in some mayonnaise – it makes a lovely dip or sauce.
~ Use to fill pasties and turnovers.

Pumpkin and Browned Butter Gratin

Toss roasted pumpkin with browned butter. Season to taste and decant into an ovenproof dish, sprinkle with fresh breadcrumbs and bake till hot with a  crisp and crunchy top. 

More Leftover Pumpkin Recipes!

The following recipes don’t need you to pre-roast the pumpkin.

Pumpkin & Maple Syrup Ice Cream

~   Preheat the oven to 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4 and lightly butter a baking dish.
~   Gently melt together 2 tablespoons maple syrup, sugar, butter, salt and cinnamon, toss with the pumpkin and add to the baking dish.
~   Cover with foil and bake for 30 minutes.
~   Remove the foil and continue to bake till completely tender and starting to caramelise.
~   Mash or purée and cool completely.
~   Whisk the cream till thick, fold in the squash (or pumpkin), the second 2 tablespoons of maple syrup and the condensed milk.
~   Freeze.

This recipe is taken from my book Luscious Ice Cream without a Machine.

~   Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/180C fan/gas 6.
~   Stir together the flour, salt and baking powder (if using).
~   Add the butter or margarine and “rub in” with your fingers until a breadcrumb texture is achieved (see this post for how to rub in).
~   Stir in the sugar once you have finished rubbing in; if you add it earlier it’s uncomfortable on the hands although, of course, it does exfoliate.
~   Add the mashed sweet potato and seasoning and then just enough milk to form a soft workable dough.
~   On a floured surface press or roll the dough out to about 1½cm/½” thick and using a cookie cutter cut into rounds or squares which are easier and more economical on time: no re-rolling. They look quite good too.
~   Transfer the scones to a greased baking try, brush their tops with a little milk and bake in the oven till risen and golden – about 15 minutes.
~   Transfer to a cooling rack till needed.

Depending on what you intend doing with the scones you could add a little seasoning such as cinnamon or ginger of even a little chilli.

Of course, you don’t have to carve a Halloween pumpkin to make delicious pumpkin dishes and if you wait till after October 31^st you can pick up pumpkins very cheaply.  In fact a year or two ago, I think it was in Waitrose (I’m dead posh, me) I saw this …

P.S. Most pumpkin recipes work very well with butternut squash too!

Please Tweet this for me!