less talk, more rock

My blog friend Margot blogged about this earlier today, which is ironic because I've been meaning to post about my most recent mini-project... Pumpkins!

I've always hated throwing out perfectly good pumpkins after the Halloween Jack-O-Lantern madness. Pumpkins are such beautiful fruits, highly nutritious, and very versatile. They are also HUGE and very cheap this time of year. All things considered, I decided to cook my Jack-O-Lanterns this year. I saved carving my pumpkins until the last minute so maintain their freshness, and saved the seeds, which I roasted later on that night.

Pumpkin seeds are very easy to roast- you wash the seeds in a collander, removing as much of the pulp as possible. Don't kill yourself trying to remove all of the pulp- at some point you have to consider the law of diminishing returns. Add salt, pepper, and seasonings as desired. I added parsley, dill, and a little bit of garlic. Spread the seeds evenly out on a baking sheet and roast at 350 degrees until they start to turn toasty brown. Don't bother adding any oils because it will accelerate spoilage later on, and it doesn't increase the tenderness of the seeds or anything. They taste great all on their own.

If you want to soften up the hull I've heard it recommended that you soak the seeds in salt water for several hours prior to roasting. I've never tried this, but I suppose it could work.

Next, I chopped the pumpkin up into large pieces. I spread these out on a baking sheet and roasted them at 350 for about 40-45 minutes. Some recipes require to put the pumpkin in a water bath or boil the pieces. Pumpkin is naturally pretty dry (hence the excellent carve-ability of the fruit), so it makes sense to add water. I find that this saps it of some of its flavor, though, so I just roast mine until tender enough to cut easily with a fork or butter knife.

The next step is pretty important. Skinning the pumpkin slices can be a labor intensive task if you skip this. Once the pumpkin is cooked, I stick it into a large pot and cover it with foil. This traps the steam and helps sweat the skins of the pumpkins. After the pumpkin cools down, the skins usually peel right off, with little extra effort.

Once the skins have been removed, I slice the large hunks of pumpkin into smaller pieces and puree them in a blender with a little extra liquid. You want to do this in small batches so that you don't clog up your blender.

Once the puree is the texture that you want, you can bag it up and freeze it or refrigerate it. There are a million seasonal recipes out there that use pumpkin- breads, soups, caseroles, pies, cookies, etc. I got about 12-15 cups of puree from a single pumpkin, and several cups of cubed pumpkin (which I wanted to save for casseroles).

From an economic standpoint, it's a pretty smart move, too. A can of Libby's Pumpkin Puree costs about $1.50. It has about 2 cups of puree in it. I got the equivalent of 5 or 6 cans out of a single pumpkin. That's $7.50-$9.00 worth of pumpkin puree for the cost of a $4.50 pumpkin. Not too shabby, especially since my puree comes from locally grown pumpkins and contains no preservatives, additives, or colorings. Worth the effort, I say.