Pumpkin Processing...Is it Pie Time Yet?

Little pun'kin in the pun'kin patch

If you have have five feet of yard space, you can grow your own pumpkins! They are easy to grow and a great garden project for the kids. The seeds are nice and big (for easy planting for little hands), seedlings appear rather quickly and kids love watching these green little balls turn into awesome orange pumpkins like "magic" in a few weeks. Besides, don't they just make you smile when you see them?

Harvested and cured and waiting

Our five year old son checked on his pumpkins every day to see how much bigger or how much orange-r it got. He walked with a definite swagger when he cut his first pumpkin from the vine. He showed off those pumpkins to anyone who came by the farm. 

We harvested the pumpkins and allowed them to cure in a semi-sunny dry spot for ten days (they sat on my porch swing). The pretty-as-a-picture pumpkins lined my kitchen buffet for a couple more weeks while we tended to more urgent food business.

Cut in half crosswise

We scooped out the seeds and "gunk" (the strings). I rinsed the seeds to remove the pumpkin goo and laid them out to dry for roasting! The pumpkins got ready for a nice hot steam bath in the oven. I got to use my holiday roasting pan from my friend, Laura to roast such a large load of cute little pumpkins.

Remove the seeds and strings

Bake skin side up for an hour or more

To cook a pumpkin, wash and cut it in half, crosswise. Remove seeds and strings. Place the pumpkin in a pan, shell side up, and bake for one hour or more in a 325-degree oven. Bake until the pumpkin is tender and it begins to fall apart. Let the pumpkins cool,  then scrape the pulp from the the shell. You can then push the pumpkin through a ricer or strainer. I pureed my pumpkin pulp in the blender until it was smooth. The empty shells went into the compost.

Now what do you do with all your neon orange pumpkin putty? Pumpkin pie, pumpkin latte, pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cupcakes, pumpkin pie, pumpkin

Pumpkin seeds ready to roast

cheesecake, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin brownies (are those possible?), pumpkin cake, pumpkin gingerbread, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin tarts, did I say pumpkin pie yet? 

My stomach just growled a little. A lot.

Getting scraped

Pumpkins are a squash, replace butternut or acorn or other winter squash with pumpkin in any recipe. I found a couple of recipes for baked and stuffed winter squash that would be so yummy with pumpkin in place of the winter squash. 

But first things first. My oven was busy roasting pumpkin seeds and I wasn't ready for all that baking yet. I mean, c'mon...I'd just cut, scooped, baked, scraped and pureed pumpkins from our garden. I needed a little break.

I scooped all the awesome pumpkin puree into mason jars, leaving a 1/2 inch head space, put the lids on and stuck those jars right in the freezer. Now they are just sitting there chilling out (haha) waiting on me. 

The new oven will be delivered tomorrow. I'm seriously contemplating testing it out by trying some pie crust recipes and then a homegrown, home baked genuine pumpkin pie this weekend! And I am promising myself to make at least one other pumpkiny dish that isn't a pie! I won't buy canned pumpkin again. We love knowing where our food came from, who grew it and how it was grown. And it didn't travel not a mile to get to my table.

Seasoned roasted pumpkin seeds

Oh! the roasted pumpkin seeds were a delicious crunchy snack! I liked mine mixed with raisins. I did one batch with cumin, salt, and paprika. Another batch with sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a teeny tiny dash of allspice. I think the salty spiced ones were actually better.

Do you have a delicious pie crust recipe? What is your favorite pumpkin recipe? 

~You must first BE who you really are, then, DO what you need to do in order to HAVE what you want.~

Go be you & have fun,

Ramsey