Eat Your Pumpkin
Every year, over 30 million pumpkins are bought for decorating, but many of them will be carved and not cooked.
A scary 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin ends up in the bin each year, uneaten. That’s £26.7 million worth of food thrown away!
Although carving pumpkins have a reputation for not being the tastiest squash, if you cook them properly, they can be a real treat. Plus, they are a great source of vitamins A and C, iron and riboflavin.
Recipes
This BBC Good Food pumpkin pie is an absolute classic traditional American dessert. Perfect as a treat with a hot chocolate after long autumn walks.
This is truly ideal for Halloween. How often do we scoop and hollow out those pumpkins and then discard all that yummy flesh? This Jamie Oliver recipe makes a wonderful lightly spiced pumpkin soup that is warming and flavoursome.
A brilliant post-trick-or-treating breakfast idea! Use up the pumpkin’s flesh to make these thick and fluffy pumpkin pancakes inspired by South African pampoenkoekies.
Cut your pumpkin in to wedges and roast it with feta, thyme and chilli for a delicious, autumnal side dish.
Pumpkin seeds are a really tasty, healthy snack. Get the most out of every part of your pumpkin by roasting the seeds and flavouring them with your favourite spices!
This moist, cakey bread is a wonderful treat. Best served with a slathering of butter of a drizzle of maple syrup alongside a cup of tea.
Creamy, smooth and delicious, this pumpkin packed pasta sauce is sure to be a hit with everybody!
Carved-Up
Carved pumpkins can end up looking a little deflated by the time Halloween is over, making them not so tempting to eat. Why not try decorating your pumpkin instead of carving it? It’ll keep your pumpkin fresher for longer, so you can carve it when you’re ready to eat.
Decorating instead also cuts waste, skips the slimy mess and saves the stress of carving with knives and little fingers!
- Decorate your pumpkin with edible paints or pens!
- Use edible glue to adorn your pumpkin with googly eyes, mummy-bandages or cardboard cut out wings!
- Use toothpicks to attach your decorations of choice – sweets can be really effective!
- Use stickers for easily removable fun!
- Add a bit of sparkle with gems, sequins and ribbons!
Be Pump-kind
Sometimes, we can’t save ’em all! If you haven’t managed to eat all your pumpkin, don’t throw it away – pop it in the compost or put it out with your food waste collection! Before you dispose of your pumpkin’s remains, make sure to remove all decorations or candles!
Compost
If you have a garden compost bin – smash up your pumpkin into small pieces – a great activity for children – and pop it in. Smaller pieces will rot down quicker than large chunks!
Food waste collection
If you have a food waste collection in your area, pop it in your food waste caddy. Just remember to remove the candle and any decoration first! It will be used to generate energy and fertiliser for agriculture.
Each local authority area has different infrastructure and capacity for how much food waste they can collect, so they each have different advice about how to put your pumpkin out:
- Teignbridge, North Devon, South Hams, West Devon or Torridge ask you to chop your pumpkin up and put it inside your caddy along with the rest of your food waste.
- Torbay or Mid Devon advise that you can put your pumpkin on top of the caddy on collection day.
- In East Devon, you can leave your pumpkin on top if your caddy is already full.
Please don’t leave your pumpkin out for wildlife as they can make some wildlife, such as hedgehogs, very ill.
