All Hallows' Eve Leftovers...

It's the morning after, only the crummy candy is left at the bottom of the bowl. But there are bags of it on sale at the local store, so the sugar high needn't stop just yet! If however, you wanted to have some real food without losing the spirit of the season, one need only look at the front porch!

I carved two curcubits this year, a traditional orange pumpkin and a gray skinned Hubbard squash. So the day after Halloween I let out some anger. Poor Jack-o-lanterns! They were mercilessly hacked to pieces in order to bake, peel and puree...
This is the Hubbard, very thick skinned, but firm enough to chunk up for freezing and cooking. The pumpkin was all pureed, I've already had pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin bread, pumpkin scones, pumpkin chai... there was in all about 14 pounds of puree off a single pumpkin! And the Hubbard squash took about 5 cake pans full to be all chunked up and cooked.

But this bounty has already made it's way to the table as well! I will have to carefully sneak pumpkin ans squash into dishes for several weeks, after this holiday orgy of giant squash carving! I suspect there will be plenty ready to go for Thanksgiving for sure.

The ultimate winter food is soup. Which is also convenient to make in huge batches and freeze any survivors! Curried squash soup, spicy pumpkin soup, creamy Hubbard soup... Winter is not so bad right?


A good bit of the squash became mixed with bread and veggies for baked stuffing. It's the best in cold weather comfort food, and it taste even better the second day so make a big batch! My largest cake pan is barely enough...