Halloween Recipes with Leftover Pumpkin

  The Witching Hour fast approaches and the Cheap$kate Recipe Conjurer is ready to cast his spell on your taste buds this Halloween season.

Once, a couple of days after Halloween I scraped off the melted wax from inside our pumpkin. I split the pumpkin in half and roasted them in a 350-degree oven for an hour and a half. I'll put the sweetly caramelized, soft orange flesh to good use.

And roasted pumpkin is tasty enough as a side dish, right out of the oven.

Roast pumpkin skin is soft to the touch, and the flesh is easy to scoop out when it's baked done. Let the pieces sit for about 5-10 minutes to cool down. Scrape out the cooked pumpkin flesh with a large spoon (discard any skin that may come off with it.) Now you are ready to make a few pumpkin-based recipes.

 

Pumpkins are cheapest this time of year, and they're tasty too, as you will see, so keep on reading and click on any recipe name to visit the original blog post recipe.

Way below 99 cents per pound!

My Rustic Pumpkin and Corn Chowder is easy to put together. The other ingredients are broth, half and half cream (or milk substitute,) a can of corn, onion, garlic, and red or orange bell pepper. Pretty simple, but complex in flavor.

The roasted pumpkin chunks will break apart while cooking in a bath of stock and cream, so there is no need to blend it to mush - as most recipes tell you - hence, my calling this veggie chowder "rustic."

And, if you still have leftover roast pumpkin, I have a Pumpkin alla Fusilli entree you can try out by clicking here.

It's a pasta sauce made with sauteed roast pumpkin, garlic, and onion, and sweetened with white wine. Finish the dish with as much Parmesan cheese as you like.

I use coiled fusilli pasta, but you can use any cheap dried pasta you have on hand.

And this is a pasta dish your vegetarian friends and family will love.

I like to finish up with my Mom's Pumpkin Pie recipe video. She makes hers with canned pumpkin, but just imagine how more intense the flavor will be with freshly roasted pumpkin.



You will want to smooth out the pumpkin flesh like mashed potatoes. You can use a potato masher, fork, or lightly blend roasted pumpkin.

I would also add your favorite sweetener to the pumpkin. It's up to you how sweet to make it, but you can start with 2 tablespoons worth. Just taste the pumpkin puree until it is sweet enough to suit your taste. This recipe calls for evaporated milk and that will add more sweetness as well.

These comfy entrees will feed your whole family. I hope you saved your pumpkin like I did. So, just cut out the soft and moldy bits, scrape off the candle-blackened part and wax, and get cooking!