It's late October. You've walked past a hundred pumpkins this week. They crowd porches and fill store bins. Lots of them will end up in the trash by next week.

And odds are, you've had some kind of "pumpkin spice" treat by now. A latte, a muffin, maybe a candle that smells like pie.

But look at what's in that $6 cup. It's mostly milk, sugar, and spice. Even where real pumpkin goes in, it's a small spoon of purée in a sweet sauce. You're paying for the idea of pumpkin — not the food.

The real thing costs about three bucks. And one small one makes a warm fall dinner for two. Here's how...

What you need: One small sugar pumpkin, two to three pounds. Olive oil. Salt. Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon. A thumb of fresh ginger. Half a lemon.

How: Heat the oven to 400°F. Cut the pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds. Set them in a bowl of water. Slice the flesh into wedges, skin on. Toss with a drizzle of oil, a pinch of salt, and the cinnamon. Roast on a sheet pan for 25 minutes, until soft and brown at the edges. While it roasts, pull the seeds free of the strings, rinse, and pat dry. Toss them with a few drops of oil and a light pinch of salt. Spread them on a second pan and slide it in for the last 12 to 15 minutes. Stir once. Pull them when they're golden and crisp. Plate the warm wedges and grate about a teaspoon of ginger on top. Squeeze the lemon over it all. Add a thin line of oil, about a teaspoon a bowl. Scatter the seeds last.

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The pumpkin has been feeding people for a long, long time...

In a dry cave in Oaxaca, Mexico, digs turned up pumpkin-family seeds close to 10,000 years old. That makes it one of the first crops humans ever grew. It came before corn. Before beans, too.

Later, Native peoples across the Americas grew all three as a team. They called them the Three Sisters. Corn went in the ground first. Bean vines climbed the stalks. And squash, the pumpkin's family, spread low across the soil. Its big leaves shaded the ground, held in water, and kept weeds down.

Pumpkin flesh was roasted, or cut in strips and dried for winter. The seeds were saved and eaten too. Squash blossoms went into the pot too.

When English settlers reached the coast in the 1600s, they found these fields already thriving. They learned fast. Pumpkin became a staple of early American tables.

Today, most of it ends up as a jack-o'-lantern...

So why this bowl? Each piece has a job.

The flesh. One cup of cooked pumpkin holds just 49 calories. Yet it gives you 78% of the vitamin A you need in a day, by USDA numbers. That deep orange comes from beta-carotene. Your body turns this pigment into vitamin A as it needs it.

The olive oil. This is the part most people skip. Beta-carotene melts in fat, not water. So a dry plate of orange food may give you less than you think. The oil helps carry it in.

Food scientists at Purdue University tested this. They fed 29 people the same salad, again and again, with different kinds and amounts of fat. Then they checked how much of the orange and yellow pigments reached the blood. Most fats worked better the more you used. But canola oil, which shares olive oil's main kind of fat, did about as well at 3 grams as at 20. That's less than a teaspoon.

Key finding: In a 2012 Purdue trial, salads dressed with just 3 grams of a monounsaturated oil let people absorb about as much of the orange and yellow pigments as salads with 20 grams. A teaspoon of olive oil on the bowl is plenty.

The seeds. Keep the shell on. The small seeds from a sugar pumpkin toast up thin and crisp, and the shell is where much of the fiber sits. An ounce of whole roasted seeds gives you about five grams of protein. That's a fine snack from a part most folks throw out.

The cinnamon, ginger, and lemon. These three do the flavor work. Cinnamon brings warmth, so the pumpkin tastes sweet with no sugar added. Fresh ginger adds a bright little bite. Lemon wakes it all up, so you need less salt. Think of them as the reason you'll want to make it again.

A few honest notes. The Purdue team fed people salad, not pumpkin. Only 29 healthy adults took part, one meal at a time. The test measured what got into the blood, not how anyone's health changed. And nobody in that trial ate a drop of olive oil. The team said olive oil dressings likely work the same way as canola, since the main fat is the same. That's a fair guess, but it's still a guess.

The vitamin A number is for plain cooked pumpkin. Roasting with the skin on may shift it a little. And no single bowl will fix your health. It's simply a good, cheap meal that gives your body more of what it can use.

The small round ones labeled "pie pumpkin" or "sugar pumpkin" have sweet, dense flesh. Big carving types are watery and bland. For two people, look for one around two to three pounds.

A good pumpkin feels heavy for its size. The stem should be dry and firm, and the skin should have no soft spots or mold. Give it a knock. A hollow sound means it's ripe.

On the label, "light" means a lighter taste and color. It has the same calories as any other olive oil. A small bottle of plain extra virgin is all this bowl needs.

Long ago, a pumpkin helped a family get through the winter. Flesh, seeds, all of it had a use. Not much went to waste.

You've got one on your porch right now. Or one at the store, for less than that latte. Either way, it's worth a lot more...

Roast it this week. Keep the oil on the plate. Eat the seeds.