Pumpkins!

My children had their first experience carving pumpkins this year.  It's not really a big thing in England, so we just didn't do it.  They'd seen me cook with pumpkins, but nothing else.  So on Friday we went to a pumpkin patch and let them pick out some pumpkins.  Charlotte immediately gravitated towards a white pumpkin.  Kieran at first went for a large orange pumpkin, but it had spots on it, and since I wanted to be able to cook with the pumpkins, too, I asked him to look for another one.  He then went for the beautiful carnival squash.  He also picked out a couple of orange pumpkins for my parents. 

So we brought the pumpkins home and took them out to the deck. 

Charlotte tried to help with the actual carving of her pumpkin, though that didn't last long.  Both kids enjoyed helping with the "goop", though. 

While carving the white pumpkin, I scooped out as much flesh as I could so I could make a pumpkin pie.  I also used the small orange pumpkin Charlotte's holding in the above photo.  Between the two we had enough for 1 pie and a batch of muffins (I saw the recipe in a Penzey's magazine and just had to try it).  The carnival squash and other pumpkin will be used for soup.  I'm personally quite pleased at being able to use most of the pumpkins.  I didn't save the seeds from these, but I think I'll roast the seeds from the other orange one and serve them with the soup.  Should be delicious!