Caitríona Redmond: Get the best from your Hallowe'en lantern with my savoury pumpkin pie
Draw on your pumpkins, starve and scoop out the flesh to make your Jack O 'Lantern or pumpkin heads in the lead up to Halloween.
I must tell you about something that I saw online in the past week that shook my entire concept of Hallowe’en decoration to the core. I could say that I got a dose of the Hallowe’en scaries.
Imagine the scene as I browsed through Instagram looking for Halloween decoration ideas that can be done on a budget.
There she was, in all her perfectly manicured glory, dunking a paintbrush into a pot of beautifully pastel glossy paint and smearing it all over a beautiful fresh pumpkin.
The influencer (for that’s what she was) whimsically painted several pumpkins that they had collected from a pumpkin farm, taken selfies with, and joyously jostled other parents and children for.
In pink and white and baby blue they piled their pumpkins on the doorstep to make the perfect autumnal or Hallowe’en tableau.
Here's the thing, if you paint a pumpkin, and particularly if the paint is glossy, there's a significant chance that the interior of the pumpkin will become mouldy and unusable.
I love a good harvest table or a harvest display, and I also love seeing things like pumpkins and door wreaths, sticky window decorations and Hallowe'en lights. All the same, please don't call me the Halloween Grinch.
It's the waste of food in the name of decoration that has my gob completely smacked.
In the rush to decorate our perfectly presentable houses have we forgotten that pumpkins are a perfectly viable food source for our kitchen tables.
From pumpkin seeds to inner flesh, a pumpkin is one of the most versatile vine fruits that is remarkably easy to produce, and we really shouldn't allocate it as a decorative purchase only.
Draw on your pumpkins, starve and scoop out the flesh to make your Jack O' Lantern or pumpkin heads in the lead up to Halloween.
Please don't paint your pumpkin with highly glossy indoor household paint at the risk of not being able to upcycle it at the end of the decorative stage of Hallowe’en.
If you really want to decorate your doorstep with pumpkins, maybe it's time to consider something a little bit more permanent that you can bring up and down from the attic every year, just like the Christmas decorations.
Now that we've cleared the air in relation to pumpkins at least I have some tips below for cooking and spicing pumpkins. If you can't source pumpkins or puréed pumpkin for recipes, did you know that butternut squash is an acceptable substitute?
Maybe you've reached the end of this column and are wondering whether a pumpkin is really a fruit or a vegetable or are scratching your head at my reference above?
I'm happy to confirm that a pumpkin is actually a fruit which has grown on a vine simply because anything that starts from a flower is known as a botanical fruit.
Most people treat pumpkins as vegetables when cooking with them, unless you're making a sweet pumpkin pie.
Possibly the best way to get the most of your Hallowe'en decorations! Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 1 roll ready-made puff pastry 250g of pumpkin purée 2 medium eggs 2 tbsp of natural yoghurt 1/2 tsp of dried garlic / 1 whole clove of roasted garlic Method Preheat a fan oven to 180°C. Grease and dust a pie tin/dish before lining it with the pastry. Blind bake the pastry in the oven for 20-25 minutes. You do this by covering the raw pastry with baking parchment, then filling this with baking beans or dried rice. Once the pastry has been blind baked, remove the pastry from the oven and lift the baking beans out by picking up the baking parchment by the edges and popping it somewhere so they can cool safely. In a large jug, combine the pumpkin purée, eggs, yoghurt and garlic until you get a smooth mixture. Add a small amount of salt and pepper to season. Carefully pour the liquid into the pastry case, making sure to leave 2cm clear from the edge of the pastry. Bake in the oven until the filling has set—it depends on the size of pie you make but a large pie (rather than 4 individual ones) takes about 45 minutes— but do keep an eye on your pie! Serve your savoury pumpkin pie with the bacon on top and a big dish of seasonal greens on the side.Savoury Pumpkin Pie
It's so simple to slice up a pumpkin, drizzle the slice with olive oil and rub over with a few spices like paprika and cumin, then slow roast the pumpkin slice (skin still on) in a fan oven at 170°C for an hour.
If you have scooped the flesh out of the pumpkin for carving do exactly the same, but cook for about 30 minutes instead. Spread the scoops of pumpkin on a baking tray instead of slices.
Roast the lot then scoop away the cooked flesh and leave it to cool before freezing it as a savoury purée. This can be added to soups or stews, and of course made into a savoury tart (see above).
If you would rather a sweet pumpkin purée replace the paprika and cumin with ginger and cinnamon, followed by a little drizzle of honey instead.
For homemade pumpkin spice combine 2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1 tsp ground ginger, ¼ tsp ground nutmeg, and ½ tsp ground allspice in a small jar. When including the mixture in baking recipes include a tsp of vanilla extract and a tablespoon of honey to achieve the right combination.
