Pumpkins

[goingbacktothecaves]

AIBU to not buy pumpkins this year , i try to not have any food waste and feel that throwing perfectly good food away after cutting some scary shaped holes in it is really bad for the environment. Surely we should be using the land and water to grow food that will get eaten?

I'm Irish so speaking from experience. Turnips are a goddamn bitch to carve. As soon as pumpkins became widely available we ditched them so fast.

Mine are well past pumpkin age, but I did notice that Morrison’s had fake ones in (some type of resin, I know plastic so still a problem) which you could use every year. Or, I dunno, not bother?

WTF is a hedgepig?!

‘WTF is a hedgepig?!’

Answer: A tryhard version of the more commonly used ‘hedgehog’.

If so inclined you could carve out the insides to make soup, pumpin bread, dry the seeds etc before putting out ? 🤷‍♀️

@JackieWeaverHandforthCouncil

‘WTF is a hedgepig?!’

Answer: A tryhard version of the more commonly used ‘hedgehog’.

Jesus it must be very tiring to lead a life which you feel requires that level of “trying hard”! Is “hog” seen as an insult or something?

I've bought a smaller one. It isn't for carving though. It's for making pumpkin cake.

Buy pumpkin

Scoop out seeds - roast with garlic - yum!
Scoop out lots of the flesh - soup, cake, in a stew - yum!
Carve and enjoy, after halloween add to garden and feed the insects - gone by spring

We have 3 large ones every year and for all the fun I don't find it wasteful at all

I have bought smaller ones for roast pumpkin recipes as well - love autumn veg :)

The giant carving ones are really bitter cooked, they aren't grown for food, they're grown specifically for carving, so they're not exactly being wasted. Compost them if you're concerned.

We buy one large one for carving and compost it. Then some of the smaller ones which I make a pumpkin feast out of. They all have different tastes, they're fab. The white ones are lovely roasted with butter and sage.

@powershowerforanhour

Ours go to a local woodland area, all the animals adore them.

Don't do this, it looks like shit and takes ages for the rind to break down. (Never understand why people dump orange peel and banana skins in the woods and mountains either).

Use the scooped out middle for soup and cut up the shell after it has been used and put it in the compost.

Yeah but it's biomass. You're worried about how it looks but it's much better decomposing in the wood vs a landfill where it biochemically won't be able to.

If a fox eats it, or a plant uses its minerals that's better than better than nothing

Why don’t you just eat the flesh? Put the seeds out for the birds?

It's not waste. You get fun out of it for Halloween and then you can throw it in your garden or local park for animals to eat.