Did you know that these darling little pumpkins are not only decorative, but very tasty and good to eat as well?! Last year I ended up with several and just couldn't bring myself to throw them out. They were pumpkins, and it seemed such a waste, so I decided to do some digging and see if they were good to eat at all. To my delighted surprise, I learned that they were not only good to eat, but there are many great recipes all over the net for cooking them! Just type in "Jack Be Little Pumpkins Recipes" into your search box and all kinds of recipes for them comes up! You can even bake several of them, scoop them out, and make an ordinary pumpkin pie. They have so many uses that I can't believe so many of them are just tossed into the trash this time of year (or any time for that matter). You can even fill each one with a handful of your favorite meatloaf recipe and bake for great, individual meatloaves (a fun way to get kids to eat meatloaf, though I still doubt it would work on me, lol).
Although the wall of these pumpkins is very thick and provides each individual person with a generous, nutritious serving of vegetable, there are also lots of seeds in the center of each one. The seeds easily come out and can be cleaned and used to roast or to plant to grow even more the next year, or you can roast most of them and save a few to plant for the next year. You can really get the mileage out of your money on these great little pumpkins if you first use them for decoration, then cook and eat them, then plant some of the seeds to grow more for the next year. I still can't believe how many of these get tossed into the trash each year. It just doesn't seem right. Oh, and if you don't like to eat them, they are also great fodder for goats and chickens. Here is my favorite way to cook them.... Click Here
If you have other ways of cooking them, or other ways to use these adorable little pumpkins before they are trashed, I would love to hear them!
Very interesting. I don't buy those, but next year we may not plant pumpkins. I'll have to remember this.
ReplyDeleteHere I go again, no where to comment, so I have to press reply. Don't know what is going on with your blog comment feature. I have never grown pumpkins for the very reason the amount of room they need to grow. But these little beauties could do the trick. Do you get many on each vine?
DeleteKristina, I don't buy them when they are full price, but after they were cleared out, I lucked into a bunch of them for 25 cents a bag, so I stocked up! The past two years, I have gotten great, end of season sales on them, but I have saved the seeds to try and grow some. Got them up this year really well, but our high heat and drought killed them out.
DeleteMarilyn, this is really puzzling on the comments! I have no idea what is going on. Looks like it is only you that it is happening to, unless others can't comment, either, to tell me that they can't comment. Bummer! I will have to check with a blogger help blog to see if I can figure out what the problem is. Sure hope we get this figured out fast! I am going to have to go back and see if you were able to comment at all before I changed the template.
The heat/drought killed mine this year, so I didn't get to see how they grow, but here is a link to one of my favorite seed catalogs where they have some great information about them.... http://gurneys.com/product.asp_Q_pn_E_14931 I have another kind that is just slightly larger, but still very small, that I will be talking about soon, too. They are really space saving because they are actually the bush-type and don't vine out! Hope this helps.
My kids asked me if they were edible and I told them no..only for decoration...thanks for the info.
ReplyDeletebut I do throw them in the back woods and they sometimes grow over winter and I have little gourds next fall.
You are welcome!
DeleteThey are actually little pumpkins and not gourds, although they sometimes package them with the gourds for decoration. The little white ones are very edible, too (Called Baby Boo Pumpkins). These are also very highly nutritious. Thanks for commenting!