Happy Halloween everyone!! I love this holiday it’s an excuse to be a kid again! You can dress up in some crazy ass costumes; eat left over sweets and carve funny looking, spooky faces into pumpkins.
Speaking of which, don’t throw away the innards! I’ve got a couple of yummy recipes for you so you don’t have to waste a morsel. The first is a deliciously sweet pumpkin pie; like lemon meringue but suitably autumnal, and the second, roasted pumpkin seeds; a very moreish, popcorn-esqe snack.
PS. I’m not exactly the best cook so don’t worry, these recipes are really quite simple. If I can do it, you definitely can!
Pumpkin Pie
Ingredients:
Pumpkin, cooked and pureed (I used the insides of 3, they boil down into practically nothing)
1 ½ Jus Rol short crust pastry sheets
1 (410g) tin evaporated milk
2 eggs, beaten
175g dark brown soft sugar
½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground ginger
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
½ teaspoon salt
Double Cream/ Whipped Cream
Method:
- Preheat your oven to 200c / Gas Mark 6.
- Put all your bits of pumpkin (minus the seeds) in a saucepan over a medium heat. Cover with water and bring to the boil before reducing the heat, covering the pan and allowing to simmer for 30 minutes, or until soft.
- Drain, allow it to cool, then return to the pan.
- Using a potato masher, mash well and drain again.
- Unroll your pastry and lay it out on greaseproof paper around your tin. (Make sure your edges are quite high as everything will rise.)
- In a large bowl mix the pumpkin with the evaporated milk, beaten eggs, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt. Mix well with a hand blender.
- Pour the silky liquid into the prepared pastry and bake in the oven for 40 minutes, or until a knife is inserted in the centre and comes out clean.
- Slice up and serve with either double or whipped cream. Yum!
Roasted Pumpkin Seeds
Ingredients:
Pumpkin seeds
Salt
Paprika
Olive Oil
Method:
- Preheat youroven to 200c / Gas Mark 6.
- Put all your pumpkin seeds into a colander and rinse under water to and separate the seeds from everything else.
- Boil the pumpkin seeds in salted water for 10 minutes. Its up to you if you want to use a lot of salt or just a tablespoon. Turn down to a simmer once the water has been brought to the boil.
- Remove from the heat and drain.
- Lay a baking sheet on your tray and cover with olive oil.
- Spread the seeds out on the tray and toss them a bit to coat them with the oil. Add paprika here to give them extra flavour.
- Bake until the seeds begin to brown. It can take between 5 and 20 minutes depending on the size of the seeds.
- Remove them from the oven and let cool before digging in!
