Thanks to everyone who braved the weather and came up to the anti-waste Pumpkin party and luckily the weather turned out just fine. It was such an enjoyable event, with lots of activities and wonderful music provided by the Tinners session. Marshmallows were toasted around the fire, kids were playing all sorts of games and making pumpkin-inspired crafts. Thanks to those of you who brought your pumpkins up to be composted and brought up food made from pumpkins. It really is a wonderful vegetable that should eaten more than they are.
On offer was the most delicious creamy pumpkin pasta, Pumpkin curry, incredible-tasting pumpkin hummus, a few different pumpkin pies, pumplings, pumpkin scones and a pumpkin cake. See recipes below and on Hubbub. Plus a load of sweet Halloween treats.
Thanks to all the volunteers who helped at the event and to Hubbub for funding the event and providing inspiration.
Aprox 150 people came up to enjoy the event and the main comments from those who attended was that it just had a wonderful community feel, that it was lovely to know they had a place to take their pumpkins to be composted and how delicious the pumpkin food was.
The main focus of the event was to save pumpkins from going to waste and inspire people to eat pumpkins. We had a recipe book out on display and hope that this together with all the delicious food on offer inspired people to look at pumpkins not as just a Halloween decoration but also as a wonderful and very affordable vegetable to be used in many different recipes. They say that over 15 million pumpkins go to waste over Halloween, carved but not eaten and that’s not even counting the ones that get left on the fields unpicked. Many people still don’t know carving pumpkins are edible.
All carved pumpkins brought up to be composted were weighed at the compost information table – 46kgs of carved pumpkins in all that went into the orchard compost bin. Aprox 10 pumpkins were used cooked up for the event plus surplus bread, rolls and cabagges.
A further 167kgs of whole pumpkins were saved from going to waste and were cooked up for the event or given away to be eaten and the remainder will be shared out at our daily foodshare collections. Pumpkins and winter squashes can last up to 6 months if they are stored in a well-ventilated position at a temperature under 15°C.
A group of volunteers went over to a nearby farm to pick their surplus pumpkins the day before the event. These were leftover pumpkins grown only for Halloween and would have just been ploughed into the ground afterwards.
More info on https://hubbub.org.uk/eat-your-pumpkinu
Thanks to Hubbub for funding this event. #EatYourPumpkin
Pumpkin Recipies
Who loved Kirsty’s Pumpkin hummus, creamy pumpkin pasta and pumpkin curry?
Here are her recipes:
Pumpkin Hummus
250g pumpkin roasted in oil and paprika till soft
2 cans chic peas (strained)
2 heaped tablespoons tahini paste
2 lemons juiced
4 garlic cloves
Blend all until smooth
Generously season with salt pepper, and more lemon juice to taste
Sprinkle with paprika on the top
Creamy Pumpkin Pasta
Two large onions
2 teaspoons of paprika
1 teaspoon all purpose seasoning
4 garlic cloves
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
One medium size pumpkin
2 L of vegetable stock
1 L of double cream
Pasta & grated cheese – as much or little as you like
Soften the onions and garlic in oil, once soft, chop up the pumpkin and add it to the pan covered in vegetable stock.
Pop lid on and boil till soft, add the double cream boil for another couple of minutes, and blend.
Add pasta and cheese
We had some lovely feedback:
Gill – “As a new volunteer it was wonderful seeing the community come together to support this event. I learnt how to improve my composting and the recipe for pumpkin hummus which is unbelievably good. Lots of people took pumpkins home after getting recipe ideas and lots of people have told me how much they enjoyed it. “
Gaia – “Really enjoyed the community feel of the anti waste pumpkin party. Lovely music, food and activities for everyone. Much nicer than the throw away culture of halloween. Great to see a fancy dress swap rail too. Loved that it was outside with a fire and cover for all weather. More of this please!”
Melissa –
“The pumpkin party event was superb. Really happy that this event took place. I have lost people in my life and honoring them in a respectful way at this time of year is extremely important to me. The single use aspect of other Halloween events or trick or treating really feels inappropriate at this time of year because of this. So for me the the Anti Waste Pumpkin party was a huge leap for a positive celebration at this time of year.
It was really helpful for myself & my daughter to be involved in the design & facilitation of the sculptures for ancestors & nature spirits with attendees & show a spiritual side to this time of year that involved the use of pumpkin seeds & the notion of seeding positivity for the coming year. The music was very special at the event as were the other workshops, the fantastic food & the recycling & waste workshop, display & info. Great to have a wonderful fire at the event to gather around. Really really hope this can be an annual event.”
Aly – “We attended the pumkin party on Saturday as a family including 2 children. It was a fantastic event we all thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really well organised, had lots of nice activities for the children and the food was delicious. We loved the ethos behind the event, so much so we helped pick some pumpkins the day before at a local farm. The volunteers are all such lovely people, happy and friendly and always make events a real pleasure. We are very lucky to have such a great space locally and also to have foodshare which everyone involved works so hard to keep going. We will definitely be attending if it happens again next year. Keep up the good work”
Thank you to Hubbub for the funding
It was wonderful to have the funding to put on an event that really fitted the ethos of our group, prevented food waste, helped to advertise what we do and brought the community together. The social media assets, ideas and recipe advice provided by Hubbub really helped promote the event and offered plenty of inspiration and ideas. It was all really useful and helped us to structure our social media and recording of the event. Putting on this event inspired us to contact the local farmer to get their surplus pumpkins which would normally be ploughed into the ground and these will continue to be given out at our foodshare collections and cooked up for our Mealshare over the next few months. Volunteers enjoyed being a part of this event as it was not only fun and much enjoyed by everyone who came but shared a really good message which was something they felt proud to be a part of.
