Halloween’s Over…What to do With Your Orange Gourd

It’s the morning of Sunday, November 1^st and as you walk out onto your front porch you are confronted with the remnants of your Halloween revelry…pumpkins (or jack-o’-lanterns, which is what a pumpkin becomes once it has been carved). You then regret the fact that the local hooligans didn’t perform a mob hit on your pumpkins and smash them to bits on a deserted cul- de-sac in the wee hours of the morning. So, rather than permit those orange gourds to rot on your porch, here are some novel ideas regarding their ultimate destination.

Pumpkins (not Jack-lanterns) can, of course, be consumed once they’ve served out their sentence as autumnal decorations. But why be boring? Why be ordinary when you can be extraordinary by avoiding the pumpkin establishment recipes such as soups, pies and breads (to include pumpkin muffins, biscuits, and scones, which are all bread-related)?

How about a nice, spicy pumpkin chili or salsa? Rather than drop a Lincoln (that’s a $5 bill in street-lingo) at the coffee franchise with the Siren logo (yes, conspiracy theories still abound), why not create your own pumpkin latte? Or how about a creamy pumpkin risotto? Or bring out your inner Italian (unless you are, authentically, Italian) with an awesome pumpkin cannelloni.

As for your kicked to the curb Jack-‘o-Lantern…sure, you could simply toss it in your compost pile or Rototill it into your garden, but where’s the fun in that? You could turn it into a piñata, fill it with adult goodies, like plastic mini-bottles of alcohol, movie or lottery tickets, some Washington’s (that’s $1 bills in street lingo), or fancy-schmancy chocolates, and then proceed to wail on it with a t-ball bat at a neighborhood pumpkin smashing party.   Or, in a less violent vein, you could use it as a planter for fall flowers, such as mums or asters. Lastly, if you live in a rural area, you could chop up Jack into bits and feed it to the local wildlife (to a deer, chopped up pumpkin is to die for, as are the seeds to our avian friends).

So, when it comes to your recycling habits, why not add pumpkins to your list when they transform from a Halloween necessity to a November annoyance overnight? We could refer to this as the greening of the orange…sorry, couldn’t resist.