Halloween recipes make great use of pumpkin over the Halloween period.  Pumpkins of all sizes can be bought from just about all supermarkets and grocery stores.  Here are some great tasting Halloween recipes for you to try using any leftover pumpkin you have.

Simple Halloween recipes

Pumpkin and potato soup

Roast
pumpkin

Pumpkin and bacon kebabs

Pumpkin and chicken vol au vents

Halloween and pumpkins (Jack o’ lanterns)

Why do we use pumpkins at Halloween and what are Jack o’ lanterns?  Much is written on this topic and I have collated some of the best snippets of information below:

• A jack-o’-lantern is a carved pumpkin, turnip or beet, associated chiefly with the holiday of Halloween, and was named after the phenomenon of strange light flickering over peat bogs, called will-o’-the-wisp or jack-o’-lantern (Wikipedia)
• The origin of Jack o’ Lantern carving is uncertain. The carving of vegetables has been a common practice in many parts of the world (Wikipedia)
• Carving pumpkins into jack-o’-lanterns is a popular Halloween tradition that originated hundreds of years ago in Ireland.  Back then, however, jack-o’-lanterns were made out of turnips or potatoes; it wasn’t until Irish immigrants arrived in America and discovered the pumpkin that a new Halloween ritual was born (History.com)
• Pumpkins have been grown in North America for five thousand years.  They are indigenous to the western hemisphere (History.com)