Repurposing Pumpkins and Delighting in Slices of Pumpkin Roll

Pumpkins are wonderfully alluring in autumn, but repurposing makes them interesting on a whole other level aside from how we often look at them as Jack-O-Lantern-bound or warmly baked into pie, bread or pumpkin roll (but we’ll let the anticipation of palate-worthy bites of pumpkin roll simmer for a little while.)

For those who have seen infamous photographs of a mother pumpkin giving birth, the hilarity is apparent in the good-natured humor of each laugh reflecting on the comical, creatively done scene. And if you haven’t seen it yet, you are missing out, so, Google it, and soon!

The mother cries tears of pumpkin seeds; her arms are green squash, her hands are miniature pumpkins and her fingers are baby carrots.

Since that clever autumn scene joined the Internet a few years ago, other spins on this hospital episode have joined many a web search. At least 10 different versions of people putting their astute minds to the test with pumpkin mothers in labor are out there to see.

Stepping away from humor and into new eyes for how we view this fall crop, consider a snowman pumpkin bathed boisterously in white paint. Using brushstrokes to bring a cozy smile to the front of a pumpkin is a nice opportunity to delve into art just before or early into November, too. Plop a winter hat from your family’s tucked away clothing boxes onto the top pumpkin with the happy mouth.

If you’re stacking pumpkins three high and paint them thoroughly white, decorating them to your heart’s wintry desire, they look eerily like snowmen (snow-people, to be fair) who somehow have the power to keep from melting away when the sun’s rays pound down lightly during chilly days. And there’s always the option to let your family craft a whole family of snow-people, too, one for everybody.

Painting pumpkins to mimic zigzagging sweater patterns or any more basic yet hue-hugging colors in patches can make these October leftovers, at least for un-carved ones, an eye-catching piece of décor around the home once November rolls into the picture.

Here are some other ideas—

• Secure baby pumpkins into a door wreath, either leaving them in their natural color or brightening them up in a mix of their natural color but some in blues that are bright reminders of robin’s egg shells and the cool air of winter

• Jazz up pumpkins with cheery foam stickers of snowflakes and season’s greetings

• Paint pumpkins a shiningly silver hue and then mingle them with evergreen branches and pine or spruce cones on tables, mantels or windowsills

• Cut off the smaller end of a neck pumpkin and hollow it out slightly, letting it dry, and then use it as a vase for fresh flowers

• Carve out a larger pumpkin to use it as a bowl to hold something, maybe candy or evergreen cones sprayed with a cinnamon fragrance

• Wrap pumpkins in a lightly meshy black lace for a curiously new texture and look

• Paint a stack of pumpkins however you please and pile them up into an unused fireplace and also around the outside of it on the floor

• Reinvent Mr. Potato Head and maybe even Mrs. Potato Head, too

• Paint a pumpkin into a penguin, a compact cow or a silvery robot with metal piping for arms and legs

• Wrap modestly in gauze, and then add googly eyes for a zombie pumpkin who doesn’t know how to stop staring at anyone who walks past

Now, onto pumpkin roll.

Tammy Hetrick of Pottstown, Montgomery County knows how to put the guts of a recently carved pumpkin to good use through baking an ever-craveable pumpkin roll in the oven once decorating skills are worn out for the night.

Hetrick prefers her pumpkin roll served cold and recommends making more than one at a time because it seems to be disappear rather quickly with dessert-appreciating factors, she says.

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