The uses of a pumpkin!

 Following our morning out pumpkin picking, my wonderful girlfriend began preparing her infamous pumpkin soup. The sort of infamous that I have heard about for over two years, but never tried.  

 

Meanwhile, I was preparing some HOT chicken strips and sweet potato chips. Looking over, I noticed she had some carrot and parsnip peels, ready for the food bin... Sneakily, I stole them and added them to my chicken. Then boasted about how good an idea it was, and instantly got caught out! 

 

Having saved the peelings from the bin, I eyed up the other ingredients to see what else I could make... and a quick google search later, I found out that the whole pumpkin can be eaten (except the stem). This sounded much nicer than onion skins, so I read on some more! 

 

One suggestion was to pierce the pumpkin, then roast the whole thing – which is something to try next time I have a whole pumpkin laying around spare.  

 

A few more suggestions were more suited to the leftovers. And these can be done after carving your pumpkins too! Here’s what we did:  

 

My girlfriend used the flesh for her amazing pumpkin soup! 

 

I took all the seeds, separated from the stringy mush, mixed in a bit of salt, laid them onto a baking tray, and sprinkled on a bit more salt and some Olive oil. And roasted for about 25 minutes, until golden brown. The result - a delicious, healthy snack to pick at all night! 

 

The skin of the pumpkin went under the knife, to make chip shapes. And were also sprinkled in salt and olive oil and roasted for 20 minutes. Keep an eye on these though – over cook them and they shrivel up a lot! Whoops! The result – although shrivelled, a great side to the pumpkin soup! 

 

Finally, the mushy, stringy innards. Once all the seeds were removed, I boiled it all up in a saucepan with water, drained the water into a jug, and mixed it up with either cider or apple juice, creating a delicious pumpkin cider, and no-alcohol pumpkin cider, respectively! A great addition to a Halloween party, for kids and adults! I used some Henry Weston’s Vintage cider, although I would probably recommend a cider that isn’t quite as strong to really get a good pumpkin note to it.  

 



 

Let me know what you’ve made with leftover pumpkins in the comments below! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to Recover After exercise!

Image
  Recovery during and after exercise is a largely forgotten aspect of training... And I am certainly guilty of forgetting the importance of recovery.    Here I discuss the two types of recovery, and their importance to exercise training.  The first type of recovery is one that is easy to recognise as rest, but is largely under valued. This is the rest period between sets or exercises. This could range from 15 seconds to over 2 minutes, dependant on your training and experience. But, do you know how long your rest should be for? Obviously, there are variations based on individual factors and fitness levels, however different training modalities require different rest periods. Commonly, this is suggested to be 1 minute, which is ideal for a hypertrophy (3/4 sets of 8-12 reps) programme. During this period, your body is able to replenish used glycogen from the muscles to ensure you can complete the next set.  For endurance training (4/5 sets to 15-20 reps or more) it is recommended to hav
Read more

No Excuses! Just Acceptance!

Image
  We all have times when we can't be motivated. And things we can't do.    But, for me, the true barriers to progress, are excuses.    I've had a few weeks of losing motivation myself, but I am back, I admit that I could not be bothered, and am moving on feeling a bit more inspired and motivated.  It is entirely normal to lose motivation for a few days, weeks and even months. It's natural that we aren't all experts at something. It's natural that life stops us doing what we want to do sometimes. And, naturally, we all come up with excuses, either true, exaggerated, or not quite true.    But self-acceptance is important!    For me, the time spent coming up with excuses, is time that could be spent doing something better.    The picture (above) from is from BBC Radio One, where Tom Hardy was interviewed. Of course, he could have said his rap career flopped due to illness, or traffic, or circumstances. Instead, he chose to recognise that he's just not a good ra
Read more