Excessive pumpkin waste

[CoolShoeshine]

It seems like people have forgotten that pumpkins are actually food. It is incredibly wasteful that so many are grown each year just to decorate houses. It used to be one or two pumpkins carved for fun, but now some people seem to have multiple pumpkins of all sizes and colours outside their house in a decorative pile. They look lovely but wouldn't it be better if the country's fields and farming resources were put to better use? I cant imagine any other foods being wasted in this way without an outcry!

We have in the past made pumpkin pie, pumpkin soup, roasted it etc It tastes minging so now we just put it in the compost

I agree with OP, though at the same time, I thought farmers were being subsidised to take land out of production, so IDK what to think. Though I was happy when they were 10p each in Morrisons yesterday. We had pumpkin soup AND pumpkin cake. Tomorrow I'm having black pudding with pumpkin for breakfast. I put cottage cheese and dates in the cake and it turned out very good. Definitely medium pumpkins are nicer than the huge ones.

Not sure i just got the ones in lidl!

the first ones they had here, small ish ones, were cookers. Heavy for their size.

You sound like a pumpkin connoisseur 😍

I do like them.....

And where do you think the golden carriages in the Royal Mews come from?

From pumpkins, of course!

How could we have had Platty Joobs without pumpkins?

try buying the cooking kind if you want to cook it, but only if you like rooty type veg. It needs a lot of seasoning or flavouring...otherwise think of it as a bunch of flowers, enjoy it as a decoration and then dispose of it.

The environmental charity Hubbub have been running an Eat Your Pumpkin campaign for years. The site contains some interesting resources.

https://hubbub.org.uk/eat-your-pumpkin

Personally I favour this recipe for pumpkin cake. It tastes just like carrot cake and is quick and easy to make.
I've made it with carving pumpkins before and it tasted just as good.
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/halloween-pumpkin-cake

I'm completely with you OP. For a start a single 3kg pumpkin needs about 1000 litres of water to grow.... and 22 million of them are sold in the UK each year. That is a colossal waste of resources, including land that could be used for producing (more) edible crops.

I did use the cooking kind for the pumpkin pie but it wasn't my thing. I haven't tried the cooking ones for soup so may give that another go as I usually like roasted squash

One of mine, small white one got nicked from outside my house last night as well!

I turn our sole not very big one into soup. Just had it simmering away with onion, garlic, ginger, red chilli, 2 stock cubes - tomorrow will blitz it and add coconut milk. 🎃😋

We grew our own pumpkins this year from seeds from shop bought one last year.

I always roast the seeds (other than the few I save for growing) and make a soup. I throw the stringy bits in the compost.

the land is being used to grow things that farmers sell for money. given we're not short of food and if they were growing something edible it wouldn't be send to starving children in other countries, what difference does it make?
I do wonder what supermarkets do with all their leftovers.
were gonna put bird food in ours and hang them in the trees.

we had four this year which we picked from a patch. we carved them for halloween and did actually also make lots of pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins and roasted pumpkin seeds from them! All tasted great, even the kids ate it all too, although soup required a little cream and maple syrup.

I bought one for carving this year, don't usually bother but DD is 3 now- I was surprised it had no real flesh! Just seeds and string.

I did roast the seeds in olive oil and put the body in my food waste bin this morning which assuaged my guilt a bit.

Edited to specify- I know pumpkins generally have flesh, I usually buy proper ones for cooking. But never had a 'carving pumpkin' before

Some gets frozen for soup or pie. But most goes to my chickens. No waste here!

eta you can toast the seeds and coat with cinnamon / ginger for a crunchy snack too

I think farms do it to boost their income so im happy to support local/working farms

Oh I drive myself mad with this. I toast the seeds, stick the guts in a cake and will be living off pumpkin soup for the next week and a half. The problem is no one else in my house gives a shit, they’d just chuck it in the bin, so it’s like I’m making work for myself and making my lunches boring for something that no one else is bothered about. I keep thinking I should start to see pumpkins as similar to Christmas trees in that they’re grown and picked for decorative purposes.

The same happened in our pig pen too 😂Expecting the same again next year as they’ll be getting our pumpkins tomorrow.

its not my thing either. I prefer an egg custard tart. the soup however....yum.
here's my recipe, its kind of like one James Martin did but I changed it because of what I had.
Flesh of a cooking pumpkin. I slice off the top, scoop out the seeds and roast it, easier than scooping a raw one. this should be the main solid ingredient and the potato/sweet potato should be a third to a half of the amount
your choice of orange sweet potato or a mashable kind of potato. This gives it a bit more body than just using pumpkin. If you just use pumpkin consider adding some milk to the recipe after you have processed it.
a chopped onion if you want to
a lime per 4 hearty portions
yoghurt or cream to garnish
if you want to go really posh then pumpkin seed oil also to garnish
well seasoned vegetable stock or vegetable stock cubes.

Basically you make up the stock as the cube or pot or whatever instructs and make up enough to cook the onion and the cubed potato/sweet potato. If adding milk, be a bit mean with the amount of water. When that is cooked to mashable, add the scooped out pumpkin flesh and mash it all together . If you think you might have the odd escaped pumpkin seed in there then at this stage you might want to sieve it to get them out. Depends if you are feeding it to denture wearers.
Process the soup till its a smooth creamy consistency. add the milk and adjust the thickness and seasoning.
Grate the zest off the lime and then get the juice out. Stir the juice into the soup. Plate up then add a swirl of yoghurt or cream and a swirl of pumpkin oil over that. Sprinkle with the lime zest and serve. Freezes nicely

oh PS you can use a chicken stock if you prefer but not beef stock, it makes the soup a funny colour.

Lots of people my way and recycling to others for animals so chickens etc

others are putting it in the food bins for recycling
don’t forget selling them is someone’s business

Thank you for this, I'll give it a go