Recycling the Pumpkin

In my kindergarten classroom this year, we were blessed with not one, not two but three pumpkins for Halloween. We voted to decide which we would carve. They picked the largest. One of the others, we used to predict and experiment whether or not it would float. The last one, we used to estimate the circumference by each child cutting a length of string they thought might be right to go around the middle. We then tried each one and had one girl whose string was right on the money. After Halloween, the call went out for pumpkins to be used in the art classes for still life drawing and, later, watercoloring. I donated our two uncut ones for the project. When that was over, they came back and so I brought them home.

Once Thanksgiving was over, I cooked one of the pumpkins. I began by cutting it in half, equatorially.

Because this was a large pumpkin, I could only bake half at a time. I chose the cold and wet Saturday that the Seminoles slogged it out with the Gators. I baked it at 325 degrees for about one and a quarter hours, cut side down on a cookie sheet.

When it was done and slightly cooled, the skin peeled off easily with my fingers, (the pumpkin's skin, not mine!)

exposing the golden flesh.

Underneath, the seeds were also easily removed and then I cut the pumpkin into chunks. This half of the pumpkin, I blended, yielding 12 cups of cooked pumpkin.

I froze this.

The following Thursday, I made pumpkin muffins, using my friend Joyce's recipe. I took them to school to let the children have a taste of their pumpkin in a different form.