Better Late than Never: Bert & Ernie Pumpkins for Halloween

With a 2 year old and a 3.5 year old at home, I knew that carving pumpkins would be more work for me this year than anything, but I couldn’t deny my son the excitement of this ritual that he’s heard so much about in books and seen on Halloween tv specials. He’s not very good at drawing yet, either, so this may be the only year that I actually get to decide what the pumpkins are going to look like, so I took advantage.

I suggested, while we were at the pumpkin patch, that we get two different shaped pumpkins – a short, round one and a tall, thin one. H-man agreed to this quickly: after all, mom does know best. 

You know what these have to be, right? Bert & Ernie Pumpkins, of course!!

After I cut the “lids” out of the pumpkin tops, I had the kids dig in with me to expel the slimy innards – a task that my daughter attacked with some delight and that I had to forcefully coerce my son to try. We set the seeds aside for roasting.

Bert was a little thicker than I was anticipating…

We scrubbed up the kids & they trotted off to ‘rest’ time (apparently naps are less ‘babyish’ if they’re called rest time?), while I looked up a few different pictures online – both of examples of other people’s Ernie & Bert Jack-o-Lanterns and of classic Ernie & Bert shots.

What I was going for…

I used a dull pencil to draw my faces on the pumpkins and then set to work with the spoon and knife. With a small knife, I scored the outline of Bert’s nose and then used a small spoon to scoop away about 3/4 of the pumpkin flesh so that the light would shine through. I should have done this with Ernie’s nose, too, but I just wasn’t thinking when I was cutting that one. I would also make Ernie’s tongue bigger next time. The rest of it was pretty straight forward. I used toothpicks to add the pupils to the eyes. I didn’t expect to spend three hours carving these pumpkins, but that’s what happened – perhaps it’s because it was the first time that I’ve carved in about a decade and I’m just out of practice. 

I just need to add here that I pretty much have the most awesome husband ever. After Halloween, he smoked Ernie and made pumpkin soup and two pumpkin pies. Hands off, ladies, he’s mine. 

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Jenn vanOosten

I live in Hamilton, Ontario, and love my city. I'm a Netflixer, choral music geek, bookworm, inventor of recipes (I take Artistic Licence on EVERYTHING that I make), wife of one, mother of two, and owner of a neurotic Schnauzer. I respect people who respect others. I love good food that's well done, but my favourite lunch is KD & hotdogs. With ketchup. I'm addicted to Clearance Shopping. I will ALWAYS get the product that I want at the price that I want, eventually.

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