I haven't had a full-sized pumpkin in years. A week ago Bob and Nancy brought Tom and I a couple of those tiny ones (perhaps Jack Be Little) and we have them on the kitchen windowsill. Tom even threatened to carve his. But last Wednesday he arrived with a full-sized pumpkin in tow and the next day he set about carving it.
He also bought one of those carving kits, complete with templates and tools. Here he "saws" the bottom opening.
And then proceeds to scoop out the "guts".
I got a bucket for the guts and I threw away all but the seeds which I washed and set aside for later roasting.
Tom takes his time, scooping the fleshy interior as clean as possible to forestall rotting. Really, we have less than a week and the weather has been cool so longevity isn't much of a concern.
Tom taped a template on the smoothest face of the pumpkin and used a rotary tool to mark where the cuts needed to be made. He started with the eyes and nose.
I suppose the process took a couple of hours ...
It's just beginning to look like an owl sitting on a tree branch ...
... and then it was finished. But the true test is how it would look at night.
Tom's obviously done this before. I have seen the kits in stores but have never bought one. I'd never have ended up with something this good.
Tom also bought a small orange LED to light the interior. There are two lights on the small fixture: one stays lit, the other flickers to give the impression of a candle flame.
My part of the project was roasting the seeds. I cleaned and dried them for a day ... on newspaper rather than waxed paper. Some picked up newsprint but I figured it was soy-based and probably edible. I roasted them well. I prefer seeds of this sort a little browned and crunchy.
We had some that evening with popcorn, two salted and buttered treats on the same plate.
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