Decorative gourds and pumpkin pie

Pumpkins are one of my favourite foods but they’re not just for eating!

It’s autumn in the northern hemisphere and the abundance of pumpkins and squashes in the shops and markets is lending the season an old-time harvest feel. Decorative gourds can help recreate that feeling of warmth and plenty at home.

I fell in love with the idea of pumpkin as decor when I went to Detroit for an October wedding three years ago. The market was filled with pumpkins and squashes of every conceivable shape, size and colour. I’d never seen so many pumpkins in my life and in such infinite variety. Probably most of the orange pumpkins were destined to be carved into Jack O’Lanterns for Halloween. I saw one lady with such a big pumpkin, she’d put it in the child’s push-chair and was carrying the child instead.

I’ve long been jealous of my American friends who talk about holding pumpkin carving parties with their girlfriends – it sounds like so much fun. I’m a bit too old to go trick-or-treating and I don’t have children of my own yet, but I could get into the pumpkin carving. What’s holding me back? For starters, I don’t really have a window facing on to the street (I do but there is a window box blocking the view). But mostly I’m a wuss. I’m a bit clumsy so truthfully I’m a little scared to try on my own in case I hurt myself with the knife. I want someone to figuratively hold my hand while I carve my first pumpkin. I’ll just have to go to the US and wing an invite for one of these pumpkin carving parties!

England does not really grow as many pumpkins as the American Mid-West but I was pleased to discover these decorative gourds on sale in Whole Foods in Kensington. They’re imported from France and they’re apparently not edible, though I don’t know if that means they taste bad or they’d actually make you sick. I paid £8 for them – a bit of a wheeze for Whole Foods considering they’re not even edible and they’re probably sold for a dozen a penny as pig food back in France. But they were worth it to me, since that’s about the cost of a bunch of flowers and they’ll last considerably longer. I bought them to put on the table when I hosted the lamb lunch last weekend, and I imagine they’ll last a good few months.

Meanwhile, I do like to eat my pumpkins as well. I love making pumpkin soup and I’m keen to try this version with Moroccan spice Ras el hanout on The Perfect Pantry blog. These pumpkin and chickpea burgers on Food Stories look really tasty – perfect for a healthy vegetarian meal. For something a bit naughtier, I’m tempted by these Pumpkin Pots de Creme topped with Caramel Whipped Cream on Cafe Lynnylu.

Recently, my fiancé and I made pumpkin pie using this Antony Worrall Thompson recipe from BBC Food. Most Americans use canned pumpkins when they make pie but this is not a common ingredient in the UK and, when you do find it, it’s not cheap. Fortunately, steaming and mashing a pumpkin is perfectly acceptable (we used a butternut squash) and the BBC recipe gives you the quantity of cooked mashed pumpkin so you can do it either way. We needed slightly less than one pumpkin to give the volume needed for the recipe.

I’m taking part in NaBloPoMo – National Blog Posting Month – where I attempt to blog every day of November. The home for my NaBloPoMo posts is my personal blog, The Niltiac Files.