(Not) just for one day

Halloween has passed and as it’s often the case, our pantries are full of leftovers. Some of them, like sweets and candies, are easy to repurpose. Others need a bit more effort and creativity.
Let’s take pumpkins, for example: carved and transformed into scary lanterns, they are Halloween’s most famous leitmotiv. But once the pumpkin has been opened and emptied, where does the flesh go? Here’s where you need a touch of creativity.

You can find a lot of suggestions on the internet about how to re-use every part of the pumpkin, starting from traditional recipes for pumpkin soups, cakes and cookies, to more creative ones, like toasting pumpkin seeds to make beauty masks or animal feed.

However, despite the thousand different ways to re-use pumpkin flesh, food waste is still a huge problem. 58% of consumers in the UK, for instance, buy pumpkins to hollow out and carve, but more than 50% of buyers bin the flesh. It means that every year the UK throws away enough pumpkins to make 20 millions portions of pumpkin pie.

But what can we do about it? That’s what we wanted to find out three weeks ago, when we asked you to share your favourite pumpkin recipes. What you showed us is that you don’t have to be a great chef to create dishes that are beautiful, healthy and nutritious, it just takes a bit of creativity!

So, here’s Gwen Dubois’ (@gwentibold) pumpkin waffles, a recipe she borrowed from her neighbour Zita and her mother and that we are happy to share with you all.

PUMPKIN WAFFLES:

In a bowl firmly mix:

•     500gr grated pumpkin
•     2 eggs
•     250gr self-raising flour (or flour + baking powder)
•     75gr sugar
•     cinnamon powder/ginger powder/ vanilla powder (optional)

Mix all the ingredients and bake in a waffle machine. Top the waffles with everything you like: maple syrup, butter, sugar, yoghurt, sour cream, etc. It can seem dry at first, but when you stir it well, the pumpkin starts releasing some water. Otherwise add a little bit of milk. You can do the waffles also with fresh pumpkin puree instead of raw grated pumpkin.