As I’ve been repeating for a while, we do have many climate crisis solutions and one of the BIG ones is to stop wasting food! Stopping food waste would make a big improvement in the climate crisis, costs nothing but some forethought, and even saves you money. Win-win! So with those thoughts in mind, I went for a walk and saw all those jack-o-lanterns out there made from real pumpkins and thought “Pretty, but surely wasteful!” Welp, sure enough, pumpkins contribute pretty heftily to food waste.
According to Forbes (of all places!):
Around 900,000 tons of pumpkins are produced in the U.S. every year. Of these, a whopping 500,000 tons (approx.) are thrown away uneaten—contributing to nearly 40 million tons of annual food waste in the country. That's more than $218 billion worth of edibles.
Many of these are leftover gourds that are tossed in the trash post-Halloween once they have served their purpose as the infamous jack-o-lantern.
So Google to the rescue!!
There are answers all over the Internet on what you can do with your pumpkin besides just a jack-o-lantern. So we tackle this subject.
This diary turned out longer than expected!: Who knew there was so much to know about using up pumpkins?!? Hopefully it’s well organised, with helpful headings so you can skip to your favourite section(s).
So let’s get the Internet to help us thoroughly use up our Halloween pumpkins!
Uncarved pumpkins
Give It Away: Of course, if you have bought but now decided you don’t want to use your Halloween pumpkin (or edible squash), please look for local groups like this one for giving it away! This group also accepts jack-o-lantern donations for composting, after you remove any extraneous material and cut it up. YMMV in your locality, but check locally and when in doubt, call and ask!
Decorate with it (much?) longer: If you haven’t carved your pumpkin yet, you can keep your uncut pumpkin longer and reuse it as Thanksgiving decor! Several sites say an uncut pumpkin should last at least a month (this site says even 3 months later, you can use them for Christmas too! — I think that may be pushing it a little too far into the future though).
Carving Pumpkins:
IF you have already been carving and displaying your jack-o-lantern, there are still environmentally friendly ways to handle your pumpkin after October 31. And you can consider and keep the rest of these tips for next year! Otherwise, as you carve today or tomorrow, keep in mind the following:
First step: Make sure it’s edible
Make sure your Halloween pumpkin is grown for human consumption and then wash the outside! Check this out, pumpkins absorb toxins from the soil and are even used for that purpose. EW! So washing it off won’t make it safe if it’s been grown in a toxic environment, but will get rid of any schmutz that might be on the outside from careless transport and/or handling. Or you might want to grow pumpkins yourself (which opens up more possibilities, discussed below)! Of course you need a little land for that. Otherwise opt for organic if you can afford it. But at least question your produce manager — you don’t want them assuming that you won’t eat your big jack-o-lantern pumpkin and so selling you a toxic one.
Secondly, please realise that if that carved pumpkin has been sitting out very long at all, it is no longer edible for humans! Outdoors even if temps are cool, it might attract critters that have crawled all over it after you left it out. Yikes! And indoors, temps are too warm. Like any food exposed to air at room temp, it should be eaten after no more than 1-2 hours of sitting out after being cut — that’s the total time it should be left out, so if you have it out at room temp for carving, note the time when you cut into it and the time it goes into the frig if it does, and then note the time you take it out again until you plan to try to eat it. If that totals more than 2 hours, it’s not for human consumption. Staph, Salmonella, E. coli, etc. grows on warm food, ick, don’t chance it!
Step 2: Once you have a safe one, Get Started Using that Pumpkin
Yes, I know little “sugar pumpkins” have tastier flesh, but many websites state that you CAN eat the flesh of the bigger ones! So let’s jump in.
NOTE: One of the websites suggested using a jack-o-lantern pumpkin only in sweet recipes, since you can adjust sugar and spices for its less sweet natural taste. Sounds reasonable to me!
Assuming you are carving (Be especially careful today — “Peak incidence of injury occurred on October 30th”!), the first thing you’ll do (if you survive the carving itself, bwa-ha-hah…) is take out the seeds and stringy stuff.
Eat the Seeds
Separate and Roast: According to Mr. Food in the video below, put your pumpkin innards into a big bowl. Fill the bowl with water and stir. Voila, the seeds separate and rise to the top! Scoop them out and place in a strainer. Save your pumpkin strings, we’ll deal with those next! You can roast the seeds with just a little salt, or see recipes below the video.
Make them hot and spicy: Mr. Food gives details with chili powder, garlic powder, and cayenne pepper (that last I’d add carefully to taste).
Make them sweet and spicy: “Joy Food Sunshine” gives details using vanilla, coconut oil or butter (hint: use butter!), sugar, cinnamon, a little salt.
NOTE: Joy says after draining, dry seeds for at least 24 hours or they won’t crisp when roasted; Mr. Food never mentions that. If you look at their roasting pans, though, Mr. Food’s seeds are spread out and in one layer whilst Joy’s seeds are crowded and in multiple layers. So I haven’t tried this yet, but will probably just separate and drain my seeds, make sure they have plenty of space in one layer on a cookie sheet, and proceed without waiting. If any of you have experience in roasting pumpkin seeds, though, please feel free to add a Comment!
Enjoy! Pumpkin seeds have protein, good fats, fiber, minerals especially magnesium, B vitamins and antioxidants; and so have been researched for their help to prevent cancer, improve urinary function, improve blood pressure and heart health, lower blood sugar, improve fertility and even sleep! They’re also high in calories though, so eat them in place of something high-cal and not-so-healthy in your diet.
Uses for Stringy Pumpkin Guts!
Did you know you can use that stringy stuff? Neither did I!! The usual edible part is typically considered the flesh after it is cut away from the skin. But I’m willing to experiment!
Soup stock: This author claims that you can use the strings along with other trimmings to make soup stock. You do save your onion heels, celery leaves, cabbage cores, and the like for soup stock, don’t you? I’d recommend melting a small pat of butter in the bottom of your soup pot, adding a drizzle of olive oil (about the same amount as the butter or a little more), cutting up flavourful leftovers like onion heels and bell pepper stemmy pieces, and sauteeing them a bit to get a little browning and caramelising. Then add the rest of your veggies including your pumpkin strings, any veggies sitting in your frig that are in danger of getting old, and bay leaves; cover the whole with water, and let simmer as at the linky (about an hour, stirring occasionally). Then strain and save the liquid for great soups! You still have veggie leavings to throw into the compost pile, but you’ve extracted a lot more flavour and taste and nutrients out of them first!
Now I have not tried using the pumpkin strings so make no representation as to how it will taste, although I suspect if you have enough other veggies to add to it then you won’t taste it much. But all that orange represents carotenoids, super-healthy nutrients! So since I am in possession of a good strainer, I plan to give it a try.
Chutney: Or this Indian food blogger says that you can use the stringy parts — yes, the strings! — to make “elephant’s head” pumpkin chutney. With onions, chiles, coconut, lime, mustard, herbs, etc., the pumpkin may not be the most unfamiliar ingredient for most of us! After cooking, it is blended into a smooth mixture.
Other Uses for Pumpkin Strings: You can also puree the stringy parts, juice them and drink with your fruit juices (I might try this), or wear them on your face! They make a beneficial face mask when blended with a few other ingredients to a paste that will stick to your skin for 15-20 minutes. After you rinse off, you can throw the rest into the compost pile.
Eat the Pumpkin Flesh
This is typically the part of the pumpkin that people consider eating, dug away from the outer rind after removing the seeds and strings. So recipes abound! This is what you can use to make typical fresh pumpkin puree that will likely taste just as good as or better than the canned stuff. When I buy canned puree I always use “100% pumpkin” anyway, as I want to control the spices.
You can make sauces, soups, waffles or pancakes, breads, desserts and more! Occasionally you will find a recipe for pieces of pumpkin flesh, but it’s much more common to use pumpkin as a puree.
I’ve made some pumpkin desserts myself in the past, in fact (I used to use canned, but now I’m inspired to use fresh!). They come out more brown than orange because I love to boost the cinnamon and other sweet spices!:
Eat the pumpkin rind!
There are fewer recipes in this category, but:
Bake it: You can eat the outer skin, properly baked!
Or pickle it (lots more recipes for pumpkin flesh at these links too)!
Use the outer shell as a bowl and serve the whole pumpkin as an edible dish — fancy!
Grow your own and have more edible parts
Grow your own pumpkins — The leaves and male flowers are edible! You can ensure the female flowers are fertilised, then removing the male flowers will not affect the number of pumpkins you grow.
Your carved pumpkin after halloween: inedible for humans, maybe still edible for aminals
Several websites say to throw your old pumpkin out into the woods or your yard for the aminals, but others say throwing your pumpkin out to wildlife is a BIG NO NO — full of fiber, too much pumpkin can cause diarrhea, which wild aminals can’t get treated! So I think the best way to use your pumpkins for aminals is to save some for your aminals (including your chickens!) IF you get the agreement of your vet.
OR ASK zoos and aminal rescue groups and local farmers if they want your pumpkin and donate it IF they say yes! Please note that in some areas, crowds of people are looking to donate their jack-o-lanterns on November 1, so please check first and don’t assume they are needed or wanted. They may already be overrun!
For any reuse with aminals, be sure to remove any toxins first, including any outside inedible paint or glitter, plus candle wax or burnt areas on the inside — those blackened areas can be carcinogenic!
FWIW, my pootie and woozle do get a LITTLE pumpkin puree every day, it helps keep them regular. But there is definitely the possibility of too much of a good thing!
Or feed the birdies: Several ways to use the whole pumpkin as a bird feeder! Again, note that any pollutants must be removed first!
If all else fails: Make fertilizer
IF all else fails, remove contaminants and then compost, or just bury throughout the garden for adding nutrients back to the soil. This is much better than sending to the landfill, as things rotting in landfills release more methane, a greenhouse gas!
After all this if you just use your pumpkin for a jack-o-lantern and then throw it in the trash, welp, you just aren’t trying!
Please feel free to add more tips, suggestions, feedback on any of these you’ve already tried in the Comments!
And a final warning because today is THE day: Take care that you carve your pumpkin, not your hand!