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What sort of pumpkins can be cooked?

I have 2 HUGE pumpkins I'm getting a late start on carving (it's almost 4 pm on Halloween night!) and I figure on putting a tea light candle in them for the few hours they will be lit.

Can these pumpkins be cooked? They weigh a ton and aren't really that ripe at all. Can I use them for cooking or should I just light them and toss them like most others do?

I really don't want to waste them if I can bring them in immediately and cut them up for freezing or whatever. Normally I would have carved my Jack O Lanterns a week ago but it didn't work out this year.

Thanks for any help!
Viv

Any pumpkin can be cooked. Just cut off and discard the smoked parts if the candle flame blackens the inside. We ate our Halloween pumpkins (home-grown of course) as our Thanksgiving and Christmas pies when I was a kid.

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Hm, I tried cooking a jack-o-lantern for pie purposes once, and it was terribly bitter  :-X even with extra, extra sugar. maybe it wasn't normal, but i'm stickin' to sugar pumpkins (small ones) and kabocha (japanese pumpkins) for all my this-must-turn-out-good recipes.

But I'd rather try it than throw it away. Unfortunately (warning: tangent), I didn't get that chance with my pumpkins. The school provided pumpkins for us to carve on Halloween, I put them outside, and the next day they were gone... disappeared mid-day... my roommates and I have yet to figure out if it was pumpkin thieves or overly eager custodial staff (since it was the day after halloween). however, we have one clue: smushed pumpkin guts on our sidewalk...

:o

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Maybe the pumpkins we grew in my childhood were naturally sweet...but yes, as BP wisely suggests, try some of the savoury recipes on here. I am champing at the metaphorical bit to try the pumpkin pasta sauce. Discovered my pumpkin weighed like 8 lbs so I gave half to a Colombian friend who melted into tears of gratitude...she hasn't seen a proper pumpkin for 7 yrs. I get that way about hominy... :'(

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Hope this isn't too late, but....

Usually the pumpkins used for Jack-o-lanterns are too watery to bake with; what ever you bake will be way too wet to be good.  They also tend to be stringy when cooked (not like spaghetti squash).  Pie pumpkins are usually a deeper orange and smaller and denser.

I would use the ones you have for a fall decoration, maybe get creative and carve a leaf into it or something; that way you can retrieve the seeds for roasting, because I think that's the only part worth eating in that variety.

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I use the little pumpkins called Cinderella pumpkins to cook with.

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I'm bad....I bought a pumpkin to carve for Halloween but never got around it.  I really only wanted it for the guts so that I could make the spicy seeds from the Iron Chef Pumpkin battle.  It's still on my to do list.  ::)

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Hope this isn't too late, but....

Usually the pumpkins used for Jack-o-lanterns are too watery to bake with; what ever you bake will be way too wet to be good.  They also tend to be stringy when cooked (not like spaghetti squash).  Pie pumpkins are usually a deeper orange and smaller and denser.

You can get round this by roasting the pumpkin, putting it thru the food processor or using a hand blender to puree it smooth, and possible cooking the resulting puree down to eliminate some of the water. Now that you say it, I remember cooking down the pumpkin puree on a heat diffuser (so it doesn't stick). Mom always added the spices about halfway thru the cooking process...smelled wonderful. The sweetening etc. went in when it was done.

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