My Little Pumpkins

Last Thursday we were up the Bath Road and popped into Roots and Fruits for a loaf of their very yummy bread. They had oodles of unwanted pumpkins lining their shelves, each reduced to just £1. Lurking among them all I spotted something very large, very round and very orange! Jenson got super excited at the enourmous size of the pumpkin and I got super excited when I was told it was reduced from £12 to just £2!! We had a very brief lesson about bargains as I lumped the thing into the boot of the car.

Work took over for the next few days and so it was today, Sunday, that we finally got around to dissecting the thing! Jenson was vaguely interested but too engrossed in building Lego with Simon. It was super lovely to see them sat around the dining table in their pyjamas. Surely how every Sunday morning should be spent but sadly too few actually are. 

We have an open plan kitchen/diner so Jenson could see me working away on the pumpkin the whole time. He would trot over every now and then and I'd hear a 'wow that's a lot of pumpkin' but to be honest, I had much more enthusiasm from Wren. She was keen to scoop out the innards. There were many a 'oooh, it tickles me Mummy' as I enthused her to just get stuck in there with her hands. After an hour though her interest dwindled and after 3 hours of scooping, cutting and peeling even my interest started to wane. In the back of my mind I had a fireworks party looming at 5pm that evening and the house still looked like a pumpkin had exploded all over it as splatters of skin, innards and pips decorated most surfaces!

I used 2kg for pumpkin soup, which was devoured that evening by our fireworks guests and bagged up the rest for freezing. I froze a total of 9.5kg! There was a big reorganisation of food in the freezer!

Despite Jenson not showing much interest, it was a process I was keen for him to see. From buying it in the shop, (we did grow our own again this year so he knows where pumpkins really come from) to lugging it home, to cutting, scooping, peeling and chopping to cooking and freezing and finally eating, he saw effort, patience and hard work; skills I feel are important for him to learn about.