It’s a lot of fun to go to the local farm to pick pumpkins and then carve them with our kids. We scoop out the seeds and flesh, and make wonderful lantern masterpieces to sit on our porches, driveways and windowsills at Halloween. Sadly the pumpkin carvings only last a few short days.

What happens to the scooped-out pumpkin flesh, or the many whole pumpkins bought with good intentions, but never carved? Unfortunately over 18,000 tonnes of pumpkin – a weight equivalent to 1,500 double-decker buses – is being dumped in the bin. There are 15 million pumpkins binned every Halloween with people just carving them and dumping the insides – that could provide a bowl of pumpkin soup to feed every person in Britain.

#homelessness #poverty #hunger #crisis #awareness

Linked Magazine, with the help of a few of our foodie listings and some research, would like to encourage you to be earth-friendly and use your pumpkin to its full potential with a selection of recipe ideas, alternative pumpkin cocktails and preserves.

#zerowastepumpkin

Balsamic Prime Rib with Pumpkin Gnocchi

Welcome to Jen Reviews, a fabulous sister magazine based in the US.

Jen Reviews are an authority on all things food & home, and are featured in Forbes, The Guardian & Cosmopolitan. They kindly put forward one of their favourite pumpkin recipes for us to share, and it’s a cracker. This really makes good use of the pumpkin flesh and is stunning enough to serve at a dinner party.

Ingredients

For the Prime Rib

• 1 section of Prime Rib
• 60 ml olive oil
• 60 ml Balsamic vinegar
• 5 ml fresh ground black pepper
• 5 ml Himalayan salt

For the Pumpkin Gnocchi

• 1 kg of cubed pumpkin
• 220 gram of “00” Flour
• 1 egg
• 5 ml of sea salt
• 125 ml grated Parmesan
• 125 ml fresh cream
• 250 ml chicken stock
• 60 ml butter

Pumpkin, Sweet Potato, Coconut & Chilli Soup

Local cafe, bistro and event caterers, MacMillans Kitchen have put forward their popular and spicy seasonal special which is perfect to warm you up on a chilly autumnal day.

INGREDIENTS
2 large pumpkins
4 sweet potatoes
2 large onions
4 celery stalks
3 carrots
4 garlic cloves
4 red chillies
1 dessert spoon mild curry powder
3 tins coconut milk
2 litres chicken stock
Fresh coriander
Double cream

DIRECTIONS
Finely dice the onions, carrot and celery and sweat until translucent.
Crush garlic and add in to onion mix with finely chopped chilli after 5 mins.
Make a with a paste made with the curry powder and water and add in to pot once the veg is ready. Fry this off for 2 minutes.
Add in the prepared pumpkin and sweet potato and mix well. Cook for further 10 mins.
Add the coconut milk and stock and simmer for 25 mins. Season to taste.
Use a hand blender to blitz the soup.
To serve, heat with some double cream and top with chopped fresh coriander

Pumpkin Gin Fizz

The Gin Thing can be found at Arnprior Pumpkins this week, delivering their super delicious gin and these special pumpkin cocktails.

35ml London dry gin (we use illicit gin made in a railway arch in Glasgow)
35ml pumpkin purée
50ml lemon juice
40ml simple syrup
Mix in a shaker, serve in a coupe glass and top up with ginger ale and an orange curl

Pumpkin Pie by Chef Chris at The Old Mill, Killearn

Ingredients

For the pastry:

250 g unsalted butter softened

150g caster sugar

2 eggs

50g ground almond

400g plain flour sifted

For the pie filling:

1kg pumpkin deeseeded and chopped 

200g caster sugar

100 soft dark brown sugar

1 tbsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp ground ginger

1 ½ tbsp cinnamon

3 eggs beaten

50g unsalted butter softened

(add a touch more cinnamon and ginger according to taste).

Method

For the pastry

1. To make the sweet pastry, place the butter and sugar in a mixer and cream together. Mix in the eggs, then slowly add the flour and ground almonds, mixing slowly until it comes together into a thick crumb – do not over mix (rest in fridge over night before use)
2. Remove the pastry from the fridge and roll out until big enough to line the tart case. Carefully lay the rolled-out pastry over the tart ring and gently press into the edges, leaving a slight overhang of pastry all the way around. Any leftovers can be wrapped and stored in the freezer for 3 months
3. Preheat oven to 180°C, prick the pastry all over with a fork, line with a sheet of baking parchment and add a layer of baking beans. Blind bake in the oven for 8–10 minutes, then remove the parchment and baking beans and place back in the oven for a further 6 minutes. Decrease the oven temperature to 160°C. Remove and allow to cool.

For the pie filling

1. Peel, deseed, and chop pumpkin, Place the pumpkin in a large saucepan, cover with water and bring to the boil. Cover with a lid and simmer for 15 mins or until tender. Drain pumpkin; let cool
2. Purée the pumpkin adding the soft brown sugar, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon
3. Combine the eggs, butter and caster sugar in a food processor and mix until they have a smooth velvety texture
4. Add the pumpkin purée to the egg and butter mixture and blitz until completely combined
5. Pour the pumpkin mixture into the pastry tart shell, cook for 30 minutes at 160°C until just set

Pumpkin Mac ‘n’ Cheese

If you like macaroni cheese, you’ll love this recipe with a twist by PumpkinnSpice. Savoury pumpkin, mozzarella and cheddar cheeses, and a parmesan breadcrumb topping makes this dish out-of-this-world delicious.

Pumpkin, Chickpea & Coconut Curry

by Jamie Oliver

Pumpkin, chickpea & coconut curry! Making this recipe a little bit in advance will give all the wonderful flavours a chance to develop. Pumpkin and chickpeas are great friends and really hearty, so this dish will satisfy meat-eaters, too.

Pumpkin & Apple Cider Fizz

Brandon at Kitchen Konfidence: food explorer, recipe curator, cocktail shaker and dessert lover shares this rather delicious drink. We are loving his fabulous, and not-too-sweet pumpkin & apple cider fizz. Sláinte!

This Pumpkin and Apple Cider Fizz is a seasonal blend of pumpkin puree, vanilla vodka, cider and ginger beer. The cocktail tastes very similar to pumpkin pie; however, it’s not overly sweet. The ginger beer lends a bit of a bite to the drink and counters the heft of the pumpkin puree, resulting in a very enjoyable mouthfeel.

Pumpkin & Apple Chutney

With the bumper crop of apples this year (ask your neighbour with apple trees for a few), and the insides of several pumpkins to use up, this is a delicious and easy recipe that can be enjoyed with cheese dishes or gifted to friends and family. look-what-i-made.com has come up trumps with this easy to follow recipe:

All you need is:
– 1 kg pumpkin
– 2 sour apples
– 2 cm piece of ginger
– 2 onions
– 3 garlic cloves
– 1 Tbsp cooking oil
– 1 chili
– 250 ml white wine vinegar
– 300 g brown sugar
– 1 heaped tbsp mustard seeds
– 1 tsp salt to season

Pumpkin Oatmeal Cookies with Dried Cranberries & Chocolate Chips

Super easy and super tasty cookies – what’s not to like? The kids will be bereft if they discover you threw out all that juicy pumpkin flesh when you could have made cookies. Blogger twopeasandtheirpod has this fabulous and easy pumpkin recipe for us to try.

Ingredients:

Pumpkin Cake with Chocolate Ganache

by lifesambrosia.com

In an effort to make the title of this recipe a bit shorter, I had to leave out one very delicious part. You see, this moist, perfect pumpkin cake gets a layer of sweet cream cheese frosting in the middle before ganache is poured over the top.  So if I had a bit more room to make titles I’d title this one: Cream Cheese Frosting Filled Pumpkin Cake with Chocolate Ganache. Or I suppose could just shorten it all up by titling it scrumptious, because that is exactly what it is.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1 cup softened butter
• 3 eggs, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree

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