Never Too Old For Pumpkins

Yesterday I was in the supermarket and spotted a huge box of fabulous pumpkins. They just looked wonderful, all these orange rounded vegetables. If taking a photo wouldn’t have seemed odd, I would have photographed them.

And they were cheap at only £1.50 each. Great for such a large vegetable. Shame The Family Jen does not like to eat them. But of course it’s almost Halloween so there is another good use for them. Pumpkin carving. Which we all enjoy every year, and find it doesn’t matter how old you are. It’s always fun, if not a little sticky and pumpkin smelly.

So we got four. And today I used up some of my own time with playing about with a pumpkin.

I cut the top off and using a metal dessert spoon I scooped out as much of the flesh inside as I could. This bit always gets loads of grossed out noises because the pumpkin “guts” are pretty disgusting, and I don’t like the smell, and it’s slightly sticky. Nonetheless, we persevered. I find using the edge of a metal dessert spoon ideal for scraping off as much of the wall as possible. I like to get it as thin as possible as it makes it easier to then carve.

When I’ve done that I take a Sharpie marker pen and draw my design on. I’m a little rough, and I may draw more than one line for a shape, but I know when I come to cut it out where I want to be. I don’t worry about the mess on the skin at the moment.

I then work out where I’m going to start and what needs doing first. Usually the weak points get done first. Now this is where my method may not be recommended by the most safety conscious of us. I use a little sharp vegetable knife, hold the blade in my hand so I have more control and ease the point in little by little. I rock it a little and slowly work my way round the lines. Making sure I’m leaving the right bits and cutting out the bits I don’t want.

I’ve seen pumpkin carving kits with safer looking cutting tools than my vegetable knife, so really I’m sure there is a much safer way of doing it, I just haven’t bought one yet.

So for today’s design I decided on a tree with cats in it. I drew that on freehand, and set about cutting. Much to the husband’s amusement. Also much to the bump’s disapproval, I think bump wondered what was sitting on top of it. Poor bump.

And so I finished after about 40 minutes. To get rid of the marker pen I simply wiped the skin with nail varnish remover. I waited until it was dark to lit it and so there you go. Jen’s pumpkin so far.

We have three more, but the children want to do them. We’re going to get them done over the weekend. It’s always an enjoyable yearly thing I find. Never too old for pumpkins.