What would you do when faced with Halloween pumpkins?

In October, I bought some assorted pumpkins and squashes to decorate my sideboard. Not that the sideboard lacks for decoration, it's already home to an enormous display of plastic fruit and the occasional basket of real fruit. I know you think it's tacky but are too polite to say it.In my defense it's nice plastic fruit and doesn't turn into an overripe mess in 2 days like real fruit left out in the Yucatecan heat.

We bought a smaller fridge because we thought that we would be eating more fresh fruits and vegetables here. Well, we do eat more fresh, but those fresh things go into the refrigerator instead of on the kitchen counter or the dining room table. When I watched the movie "Mr and Mrs Smith" (dumb movie, I didn't even watch the entire DVD), I remember being struck by the beautiful bowl of colored bells on her kitchen counter. Doing that here is an invitation to disaster.

Now the pumpkins did well, I bought some little cute mini ones,a pair of bizarre Turk's turban squash, and one orange and one yellow acorn squash.

So back to my dilemma, the assorted little darlings were still in good condition but no longer interesting as a centerpiece. I have no problem dumping overripe produce in the compost pile or even unripe things that get cut open too soon. But, tossing perfectly good produce, even if it's raison d'entre is to be merely decorative. So like any thrifty minded individual confronted with a vegetable and a lack of inspiration. I made soup! I utilized my basic non dairy cream of vegetable soup recipe to which I added ginger and nutmeg to the soup.

Today, we had cream of pumpkin soup with ginger, stuffed eggplants and a green salad with honey chipolte dressing.