Pumpkins Are Scary Good

By Heidi Buyak

If it’s been a while since you carved a pumpkin, or if you’ve never carved a pumpkin, this can be a fun (albeit messy) activity to do with family and/or friends. If you have young children, adult participation and supervision is a must since you need a knife to get the desired spooky results.

First, pick out a pumpkin with a good stem. This will be the handle you need to carve around creating a lid to open the pumpkin and scrape out its stringy guts. If you do this indoors, let’s say, on the kitchen table, cover the table with newspaper. Place your gorgeous gourd on the table, carve around the stem, then lift it off and set it aside.

Now, dig inside with hands and spoons to remove all the seeds and slimy pumpkin guts and plop it all on the newspaper — making a big scary mess!

What about all those seeds? Rinse off the seeds and let them dry until you’re done carving the pumpkin, then spread them out on a cookie sheet with a little olive oil and salt – or any seasoning you think would taste good. The seeds don’t have to be perfectly clean of pumpkin innards; they’ll still taste good.

Toast the seeds in the oven at 350°F for about 12 to 15 minutes, tossing them every five minutes or so. The seeds are done when they smell a little nutty and turn golden brown.

Back to your pumpkin… Pick a side to carve the face and draw your idea on the gourd. Then with the knife, carefully cut out the face you have drawn. Once you’re finished you can place a candle, real or battery-powered, inside your masterpiece and set it on the front porch ready to scare away all the ghosts and ghouls while you munch on frightfully good pumpkin seeds! How frightfully good? Pumpkin seeds contain zinc, magnesium, phosphorus, copper, niacin, a little protein, and tryptophan — to help everyone get a little sleep after all that Halloween candy.

Believe it or not, pumpkins are good for more than just carving and eating the seeds. Native to North America, pumpkins have been around for 9,000 years with pumpkin seeds showing up in Mexico sometime between 7000 – 5550 BC. Technically a fruit, pumpkins were grown by indigenous people alongside corn and beans in an ingenious way called “three sisters.” Corn would trellis the bean plants, and the pumpkins would protect the roots of the corn and keep the weeds away.

Nowadays, we see the pumpkins we buy from our local pumpkin patches as merely decorative, and the pumpkin pies, breads, and other sweet treats we make use canned pumpkin. This is fine, of course, because it’s hard work cutting up, scraping out, and roasting the pumpkin in the oven.

Who has time for all that?

However, should one want to try, pumpkins might be one of the more versatile and healthier fruits to eat. Here is an easy recipe to try from none other than Martha Stewart herself.

Select a small sugar pumpkin – big enough to feed two people.

Cut it in half from the stem down.

Preheat oven to 400°F.

Remove seeds, drizzle inside with olive oil and salt and pepper to taste.

Place the halves face down on a baking sheet. You can use parchment paper in the pan.

Roast for 35 to 40 minutes, until soft.

Roasted pumpkin can be stored in an airtight container for up to five days.

According to an article from The University of California, UC Davis, every single part of a pumpkin is edible: the skin, leaves, flowers, pulp, seeds, and stems. Most of us only know about the pulp and the seeds, and maybe the blossoms. The article continues, stating that pumpkins are 92% water and excellent sources of potassium, vitamin A, and beta-carotene — the antioxidant that gives pumpkins their beautiful orange color.

Of course, with over 45 different varieties, most of which you can see this year at our local pumpkin patches and farmers markets, you’ll see more than just orange. Pumpkins come in almost every color from ghostly white, sage green, and yellow, to the rich color of a red-orange crayon. There are even variegated and warty varieties!

Not sure which one to get? Don’t worry, there are plenty to go around. Approximately 800 million pumpkins ripen just in time for October! Maybe get one in every color! And be sure to give these pumpkin-packed palate-pleasers a try!

Happy fall!

Gravity Lounge Pumpkin Cheesecake

(Gravity Lounge is the name of a now-defunct restaurant in Tallahassee, Florida, circa 2003.)

Ingredients:

2 oz ginger snaps (7-10 cookies), finely crushed

3 8-oz packages of cream cheese

2 cups packed brown sugar

3 eggs

2 cups pumpkin puree (canned okay)

2 cups sour cream

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. ground ginger

1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg

1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

Instructions:

Grease sides and bottom of springform pan. Dust with ginger snap crumbs, leaving loose crumbs in the bottom of the pan.

Cream 1 1/2 cups brown sugar and cream cheese until smooth. Add eggs one at a time, beating well and scraping sides of bowl in between. Add pumpkin, 1 cup sour cream, spices and vanilla. Beat until well blended.

Pour mixture into pan and bake at 350°F about one hour until edges are firm but center still jiggles.

Mix 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 cup sour cream until smooth and pour over cheesecake. Sprinkle with a few ginger snap pieces or crumbs. Turn oven up to 400°F and bake five more minutes.

Remove from oven, bring to room temperature and then refrigerate at least two hours.