I really like pumpkin things and I hate to let all that lucious pumpkin sit and mold after I've carved a pumpkin.

I have come up with a new way to carve my pumpkins. I cut a good sized chunk out of the back rather than cutting the top out. Then I carve some rather large eyes and mouths on my pumpkin. I take the pumpkin pieces and either bake them in the oven or cut them into chunks and cook them in a pot of water. This gives me pumpkin to use in bread, fudge, and some other recipes out of one pumpkin and I still have a pumpkin to light.

what I did yesterday was to take the cooked pumpkin chunks, put them in storage bags, then I kneaded the storage bags to get the pumpkin into a consistency to use in the recipes. You can do this with the pumpkin cooled or warm.

Happy carving!

Wasrabbity,

That sounds like a great idea, and I'd love to see a pic.

Out of curiosity, are you using regular carving pumpkins for this? I often wondered if there is really much difference between an 'eating' pumpkin and a 'carving' pumpkin beyond the extra string-y-ness.

I have, in the past, frozen pumpkin flesh without as much as blanching it. It remains fresh tasting and wonderful for all recipes which need pumpkin.

Or you can draw/paint a face on it instead of carving it. Many times our Halloween pumpkin became our T-day pies. Usually I used a sharpie. Since you peel the skin off anyway I figure it doesn't matter how toxic the pen was...

Daisy, I think there's an appreciable flavor difference between the basic jack-o-lantern and the sugar pie pumpkins.