How to carve a pirate pumpkin and what to do with the leftovers of the pumpkin

One thing up front: I love carving pumpkins, but I am not a big Halloween fan and yes, I get annoyed if dozens of masked teenagers knock on my door and beg for sweets or even worse alcohol or money. I am happy to hand out sweets to young children, but teenagers? At some point you get a bit old for that, don’t you think?

But enough of the rant and back to the nice sides of Halloween, because this post is all about carving pumpkins and the delicious things you can make out of the pumpkin leftovers. Yesterday morning, we sat down in the kitchen and decided to bring some Halloween flair to the house. Ben has never carved a pumpkin before, so he was really excited about giving his pumpkin his personal touch. We searched the internet for some ideas and thought, why not go for a pirate carving – we arrrrr living in the West Country after all.

Here’s a little time line of our carving session. Maybe you feel inspired and get creative yourself. If you do so, make sure to leave a comment, so I can come and have a look at your masterpiece.

Our tip: Take your time and don’t rush when carving out the highlighted areas. Also, be careful with the knife: My pumpkin was temporarily covered in blood and that was not part of the Halloween decor.

If like us, you enjoy cooking, you can use the leftover seeds to make a sweet crispy treat and the pumpkin meat to cook a scrumptious autumn soup.

For the honey roasted pumpkin seeds:

Wash the seeds and clear them from excess pumpkin. Then roast them in the oven at 150 degrees until they are crispy and then salt them to taste. To give them a nice sweet finish, cover them in honey and roast them until golden. Take them out of the oven and leave to cool

For the soup:

1 large chopped onion

3-4 cups of mashed cooked pumpkin

1 tbsp of minced garlic

6 fresh carrots finely chopped or grated

3 tbsp of butter

1/2 tsp of salt and a dash of pepper

1/2 pint of double cream

1 tsp of thyme

4 tbsp of chopped parsley

2 stalks celery

Fry the onions, celery and the grated carrots in butter until tender. Then add the remaining ingredients except the cream and cover the mix. Simmer the soup for about 10 mins and stir occasionally. Add cream to taste and heat for about a minute.