Waste not, want not

**Pumpkin Pasties**

Part of your Halloween celebrations must surely involve pumpkin carving! Once the celebrations are over, the zombies dealt with, it seems a shame to throw your grinning orange friend away (though it’s more like a massacre when you chop it up for food). These pumpkin parties are simple and something a little bit different to share with friends in the aftermath of bogey men, booze and fake blood.

**Pumpkin Pasties – savoury**

Anything can happen when you’re making these – you might lose a load of pumpkin to your friends or to the floor so treat the measurements as rough guidelines. Some people will want more pumpkin or more onion so feel free to vary the quantities.

To make roughly 16 mini pasties you will need:
Ready roll pastry – either puff or short crust (short crust doesn’t rise as much)
300g pumpkin diced
1 medium potato – peeled and diced
1 onion – finely chopped
1 clove garlic – crushed
Salt and pepper to season

1. Preheat oven to 200F. Cover a baking sheet with greaseproof paper.
2. Boil the pumpkin and potato cubes in a pan for 10-15 minutes until soft.
3. Meanwhile you can fry the onions and garlic lightly for a few minutes. If you prefer a stronger onion flavour, leave this step out.
4. Drain the boiled pumpkin and potatoes and then mash. Add onion and garlic to the mash and mix together.
5. Season! (The first time I made these I didn’t season them at all and they turned out really bland so do make sure you add some salt and pepper or you’ll be disappointed. Also, if you have any, a nice variation is to add some rosemary and thyme – half a tsp of each.
6. Roll out the pastry and cut circles about 20cm in diameter. Spoon a desert spoon of the mixture into each circle. Fold over to make half moon shapes and press the edges together so the mixture doesn’t spill out. Transfer these to the baking sheet.
7. Cook in the oven at 200F for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

**
Pumpkin Pasties – sweet**

The ratio for pumpkin to sugar for sweet pumpkin pasties is 4:1, so however much pumpkin you use, you need to add a quarter of that amount in sugar. I only had a bit left so used 100g pumpkin and 25g sugar. If you want to make more though you can just scale it up.

To make roughly 16 mini pasties you will need:
Ready roll pastry – shortcrust probably works better with the sweet pasties
400g pumpkin – grated or diced in small cubes
100g sugar
¼ tsp ground cinnamon
¼ tsp ground nutmeg
Optional – 1 tbsp natural yoghurt/crème fraiche (this just makes them slightly creamy but maybe only add it if you have some yoghurt lying around)

Grating the pumpkin has a similar effect to boiling and mashing it – as in the savoury recipe. When grated pumpkin cooks, it goes soft and combines with the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg a lot better. Chopping it into small chunks works equally well though – you get more of the pumpkin flavour by itself.

1. Preheat oven to 200F.
2. Combine pumpkin with sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg (and yoghurt/crème fraiche if you wish).
3. Leave for about five minutes as you roll out the pastry and cut your circles – 20cm in diameter.
4. Spoon a desert spoon of the mixture into each circle and fold over to make a moon shape. Press down the edges so the mixture doesn’t spill out. Place on the baking sheet.
5. Cook in the oven at 200F for 30 minutes or until golden brown.

**Tips**

Don’t spoon too much of the mixture onto each circle of pastry because you will overfill them and the pasties won’t close. You can’t fit as much as you think inside and still get them to close so small spoonfuls of mixture are actually better.

Go easy on the cinnamon and nutmeg because together they are quite strong and if you add too much they will overpower the pumpkin.

If you use puff pastry, place the pies further apart on the baking sheet because they will expand. With shortcrust pastry you can put them much closer together because it doesn’t expand very much.