Around 18,000 tonnes of edible pumpkin is wasted each year after Halloween – and some Nottingham shop shelves were stacked high with this year’s unsold crop on Monday.
To help make use of them, the Love Food Hate Waste campaign has come up with recipes to help re-use the fruit in tasty meals.
The average household throws away about £470 worth of food per year, according to the group.
It is offering free training to people in Nottingham who want to save food and money by learning how to re-use what they would otherwise throw away.
Tips such as meal planning, correct portioning, making the most of leftovers and understanding food labels correctly can help a household save hundreds.
Pumpkin Tart
- 275g plain flour
- A pinch of salt
- 125g unsalted butter, chilled and cut into small cubes
- About 10 tablespoons of cold water
- 1 whole pumpkin
- 2 eggs
- 100g caster sugar
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- Pinch of nutmeg
- 25g sunflower seeds
- First make the pastry. Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Add the butter and gently rub into the flour until it looks like fine breadcrumbs. Add enough water to make dough and form into a smooth ball. Cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.
- When the pastry has relaxed, roll it out on a lightly floured board to ¾ mm thick and line a 20cm loose bottomed fluted flan ring.
- Cover the pastry with baking paper and fill with baking beans. Cook blind on a baking sheet in the oven set at gas mark 4/180C/350F for about 12 minutes, then carefully remove the beans and the paper and return the case to the oven and cook for a further 5 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the filling using the flesh scooped out from the pumpkin. Steam the flesh for 15-20 minutes, drain and then mash. Leave to cool and then beat the eggs together with the sugar and stir into the pumpkin mixture. Add the cinnamon and nutmeg.
- Pour the filling into the pastry case, sprinkle the seeds on top and bake in the oven set at gas 5/190C/375F for about 45 minutes until the filling has set.
Pumpkin Mash
- 1 small pumpkin
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- A few sprigs of rosemary
- Salt and pepper to taste
1. Pre-heat your oven to 200°C, 180°C fan oven, Gas Mark 62. Simply cut the top and bottom off the pumpkin, peel off all the skin on the outside and remove the seeds.3. Cut it into cubes measuring around 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch and place them in an ovenproof casserole or baking tray. Add the tablespoon of olive oil, the rosemary, some salt and pepper and mix together.4. Place in the oven and roast for 25 minutes until softened.5. Remove from the oven and discard the rosemary. Then it’s up to you: either mash it by hand or liquidise it, depending on how rustic you like it. Season to taste. There you have it – a simple pumpkin mash.
For more information on food waste training, contact Allisson Czerwinka by emailing [email protected] or by calling 01457 869714.
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