to think that hollowing out pumpkins is infeasibly hard work?

[Greensleeves]

I have about 8 pumpkins sitting here waiting to be carved, dh is away and the kids are too little to do the hollowing out donkey work, but thye are very excited about carving faces

the last time I hollowed out a big pumpkin it took hours and I had blisters

am I doing something wrong? are you meant to cook them first or something? or does everyone else just have bionic strength?

We take out the stringy bits and the seeds too....

We also got a pumpkin carving kit from Tesco's like the one from Asda just £1 hubby groaned (we have two one for each side of the door) but a well spent £1!!!

ok have figured this out (5 pumpkins later)

the big carttony orange ones from the supermarket were a piece of piss - foamy, loose flesh and really easy to carve

the organic mottly ones from the veg box - fucking nightmare, flesh as tough as swede, dark reddish orange and will make very nice soup - but took ages and ages to hollow out and I nearly cut my thumb off carving them

mystery solved

I;m surprised at how many people don't eat the flesh to be honest! I'd feel guilty doing that [mad vegetarian liberal guilt emoticon]. Getting the flesh and seeds out was easy but the flesh was a bleddy nightmare. Pumpkin soup was lush though

Greensleeves, I'm a bit worried about the enormous pumpkin I've just collected from my allotment (had to rest three times getting it from the boot of the car to the front door!) because it is indeed the pale yellow sort that looks a bit like butternut squash. I think it's going to be evil to cut.
I have got a bright orange one that looks a lot softer but it's only little.

I just did a swede. It looks terrifying.

A sharpe knife makes it much easier.

GREAT TIP!!! cut a hole in the back rather than the top! This way you don't have to worry about burning you hand or the lid falling in.

I use all of it and eat the seeds.
Have put a pic of our pumpkin on profile.

OMG paisley that pumpkin is incredible

I am lol at you doing 8, bloody hell, your wrist must be falling off

I am pleased with it. Although the eyes are worryingly close together - I thought it'd break there.

I have returned home to find my 17 yr old DS and 19 yr old DD have carved both pumpkins. One now says 'GAY' under a smiley face and the other has a jolly penis cut out to the side of the face with little drips going into the mouth. And they took a photo of the dog with the cut-out piece of penis pumpkin in her mouth.

yabu!

Try a turnip.

But why are you doing eight? That is a lot. I couldn't be arsed with any more than two. And even that is one too many.

lol - have just caught up. So organic pumpkins are tough beasts?

Are you just trying t use up all the left over pumpjkins veg from your economical veg box?

excellent pumpkin, paisley

I was brought up on turnip lanterns - now THAT was hard work.

Catofonetail
that's terrible - but quite funny!

I use a melon baller to scrape out the flesh

i thought i was going to escape them til MIL turned up with 2 an hour ago. Then ran out the door, and seeing as DH is at work, it's left to me....groan... I can't stand the smell of them!!

oh my god paisley
that is fabtastic

catofonetail, that has to be the funniest thing I've heard about for weeks

ok, OP why do you have 8?

I agree!! I did it this year and carved out a face and made pumpkin pie with the gloop in the middle (was alright)..

Next year I'm getting a nice metalic pumpkin and libby's pumpkin pureee (if I can get hold of the stuff)

norks, yes, for the first time in my life, I thought, if only we had a melon baller!

ended up doing 9 in the end, and still have one little one left!

the kids have named them Grim, Blink, Munchie, Sneaky, Cheeky, Vampire, Screech, Howl and Glum

they look cool

We just scrape out seeds and stringy bits too. I noticed in the supermarket as well as the Halloween Pumpkins they have Culinary Pumpkins - wierd or what?

nine Wow !

have just added pics of mine to my profile....