Turkey Pumpkin

What's better than pumpkins and Halloween?!

That's right! Continuing pumpkin season into November, with a fun pumpkin turkey centerpiece!!

This centerpiece is super quick and easy to make and is perfect for a thanksgiving gathering of any size.

Supplies

• 1 medium pie pumpkin
• Long wooden skewers
• Toothpicks
• 1 Apple
• 1 Cantaloupe
• Red grapes
• 1 Block of white cheese
• 1 Block of orange cheese
• 1 Summer sausage or pack of beef sticks
• Any other assorted fruits and cheeses

First you will need to find a nice pumpkin for the base of your turkey. I find a medium pie pumpkin works well but for a bigger or smaller gathering, simply size your pumpkin accordingly.

Next figure out what type of turkey you want to make, fruits, meats, cheeses, a combination or something totally different. I used both fruits and meats/cheeses.

Gather all your selected foods. I chose a cantaloupe, red and green grapes, blueberries, bananas, an apple, white cheddar cheese, Colby jack cheese and summer sausage. Cut the cheeses, sausage and large fruits into roughly 1" cubes, slice the apple and banana.

Now you're going to figure out how many skewers you need, this will all depend on how big your pumpkin is and how dense you want your feathers. The best way to figure this out is to either draw your placement or pre-poke your pumpkin.

For either method lay your pumpkin on its side and decide which side you want to be the top of your turkey and if you are going to use the stem as the face or if you are going to attach a separate piece for the face. Orient your pumpkin with the "face" facing you and the top facing up. With a sharpie, mark dots at least an inch apart across the top of the pumpkin. Once you have one row of dots, mark another row an inch or two closer to the front of your pumpkin, make sure to stagger these from the first row. This will tell you how many skewers you will need. Alternatively stab the empty skewers into the pumpkin, remembering to leave space for the fruits between skewers. If you have a larger gathering you can always add more rows of skewers.

Once you have figured out how many skewers you will need, add the food pieces to them. I decided to do one row of fruit and one row of meat/cheese.When skewering remember to leave a few inches on each end, for stabbing into the pumpkin and holding to eat.

Since apple slices are already pretty tall, I used them as a front row of shorter feathers. Slice one apple and stab with a toothpick, leaving about half the toothpick out of the apple slice.

As previously mentioned, the skewers will build your turkey fan. Stab all skewers into the pumpkin, starting at the widest point of the pumpkin and working down in rows from there.

For the front of the fan add a row of apple slices on toothpicks.

For the face you have a couple options, use the stem and draw some eyes or tack a pear onto the back of the pumpkin with some toothpicks. For eyes, you could also use some white chocolate chips/melting candies, some blueberries or any other small round food.

Try adding a gizzard with a Swedish fish.

Add a beak with a triangular piece of cheese or pineapple.