It's the day before Thanksgiving. You are wondering what you can bring to your family's holiday dinner that will say, "I am an adult, but I am also fun." Your mother just heavily implied over the phone that you shouldn't cook anything because the food you bring is often "weird." You realized too late that you shouldn't have brought up the cured egg yolk you were thinking about repackaging as a hostess gift.

When you want to bring booze to the party but also want to look like you have your shit together, try bringing the booze wrapped in produce. I don't know, something about repurposed produce screams, "Not failing."

Listen, you can turn a pumpkin into a fairly impressive punch bowl just as easily as Cinderella's fairy godmother turned one into a carriage. It's actually extremely self-explanatory, but let's walk through it anyway.

1.) Get a pumpkin. There are so many options. I really like a Cinderella or a Cheese because they look the most like a fairytale pumpkin. You can also get a normal Jack-o-lantern pumpkin. You can get one of those messed up peanut pumpkins if you are feeling sick and twisted. Those pumpkins are MESSED UP. Actually, don't get a peanut pumpkin because they have too much flesh/too small of a cavity, and there won't be enough room for your booze.

I got mine from Fair Foods because you should always support your local farmers.

2.) Cut the top off your pumpkin exactly the same way you would for a Jack-o-lantern. Really, the opening you create only needs to be wide enough to get the ladel in and out.

Look how messy our counters are. This is embarassing.

3.) Look at what an awesome job you are doing so far.

4.) Pull out all the insides.

5.) Scrape down the pumpkin's sides (I used an avocado pitter, which worked super well). You want to remove any left over stringy bits that are still attached and enlarge the cavity until you think it is big enough to support your punch aspirations.

6.) This is totally the most important part. Fill the pumpkin with paper towels in order to soak up some of the pumpkin juices. This is so that the pumpkin flavor doesn't seep into whatever you put in the pumpkin. That said, we left apple cider in the pumpkin over night and it tasted like pumpkin apple cider in the morning. It was delicious. You have to make your own choices.

7.) After you decide that a satisfactory amount of pumpkin juice has been absorbed, start putting stuff in your pumpkin. I started with pomegranate seeds because orange and fuscia are gorgeous together.

8.) After you set your pumpkin up in its serving location, fill that bad boy up.

Now, we put punch in our pumpkin, but you can put so much more in there. You can have a pumpkin bread basket. How about a pumpkin full of melted cheese just for the hell of it? Maybe you want to get 50 mid-sized pumpkins and announce that this Thanksgiving no one is using plates, we are embracing the season and only eating out of pumpkin vessels. The possibilities are endless.

Have fun blowing everyone's mind.

#DIY #Drinking #Serving #Pumpkin #Autumn #Gourds #Food