have your jack o'lantern and eat it, too

so these are the pumpkins maggie and i carved for halloween this year. normally, halloween is a kind of symbol to me of how decadent we've let ourselves be in this culture - taking a perfectly good piece of food, cutting it up, and displaying it in front of your house, for all the world to see it rot. scary, indeed.


but there's no reason you need to just let 'em go to waste! we were able to cook every part of these pumpkins that we normally would (roasted the seeds, cooked every piece of the flesh), and join in on a fun carving tradition. with just these pumpkins (ok, and a little more donated from cutouts from other friends' creations), we made a pumpkin-quinoa risotto, have a quart of roasted pumpkin puree in the freezer, and made over 11 pints of tasty, tasty, pumpkin butter.

pumpkin butter recipe (adapted from allrecipes):

INGREDIENTS

• 4 cups pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup apple juice (we used local cider)
  
• 2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• a healthy splash of maple syrup
  
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• a squeeze of lemon
  

DIRECTIONS

1. combine pumpkin, apple juice, spices, syrup, and sugar in a large saucepan; stir well. bring mixture to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes or until thickened. stir frequently, or else lava-hot spurts of pumpkin will shoot out of the pot and all over you and your kitchen.
   
2. transfer to sterile containers and chill in the refrigerator until serving.