Pumpkin!

I just canned 19 quarts of pumpkin for the family storage shelf. We all love pumpkin pie and other goodies, so let's hear from you with your favorite ways to preserve it and things you make from pumpkin.

Rick

19 quarts..? how many pumpkins was that?

I've tried drying pumpkin....but it doesn't rehydrate all that well.

They do however keep quite nicely all by themselves in the cellar...Kept 2 last winter and forgot about them....when I threw them out in the spring, they were still edible.

What people normally think of as a pumpkin, either the typical jack-o-lantern kind or even the gigantic ones grown for "biggest pumpkin" contests, are not at all the best choices for eating or preserving. I tried to can some of my 220 lb giant that I grew, and it was mostly liquid that took a long time to cook down into something recognizable as canned pumpkin. I think the commercial canneries use hubbard or butternut squash and label it as pumpkin.

Many varieties of winter squash (pumpkins) taste better, have a lower percentage of water in the edible part, so they keep longer without rotting, and they dehydrate easier. A lot of commercial canned pumpkin is actually canned winter squash, such as hubbard or butternut.

Normally I just put winter squash in a cool dry place and try to eat them within 2-4 months, although some last even longer. We have canned some in the past, but not recently. I try to raise the kinds that keep best and put them in a place that stays cool but does not freeze, up off of cement floors.

The period correct method is drying, and I know people that dried them long after canning jars became available. They can then be eaten as "stewed pumpkin", just with salt and pepper, or spiced up with some butter, honey, cinnamon, ginger and/or what-have-you. Just butter and cinnamon is my favorite way for fixing the garden winter squash we have grown or occasionally buy at the store.

I wouldn't buy a jack-o-lantern (Connecticut field) pumpkin to eat or preserve. There are too many better alternatives out there. They can be eaten, but they are mainly sold for their decorative appeal. Banana squash are great, as are a whole lot of the colorful, warted, and twisted heritage types.

I agree...small pumpkins and squash...keep best and taste best. :thumbsup:

Now I regret not planting any this year.

My favorite is the Delicata squash - most flavorful of the squash I've eaten. I cut them in half, remove the seeds, salt & pepper, coat with oil and bake at 425-450F.

Sweet potatoes keep extremely well in the cellar too.

I've played around with dried pumpkin with fair success. I like what are locally called pie pumpkins, smaller, sweeter and more tasty. I sliced them pretty thin, dried them well and used them on treks to make a simple stew with some brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. It takes a while to rehydrate them, several hours, sometimes, but if you do that well they are very much like fresh. The dried ones keep a long time.

I've also had good luck with butternut squash, pumpkin and cushaws in making butters, like apple butter. The process is about the same for all, and they go mighty nice with many meals.

Spence

Unsweetened but pie consistency, you can stir them with a little milk, add cooked shredded beef or pork, cooked potatoes, onions, salt and pepper it makes a good chowder.

Not HC, but my wife often bakes a sliced up pumpkin with the skin on in the oven. She then scrapes out the meat and freezes it in freezer bags. It may be too runny for pie, but works well in other pumpkin dishes.

Problem is Pumpkins of today are not the same as the 70's, dont know when they changed but now the flesh is like Spaghetti squash, been trying to find heritage type that has the old fine grain flesh, but no luck so far. The Pumpkins that I have tried to grow over the last three years dont grow, had a single four inch one over the years, thats it.

We have never had a problem canning and using the so-called Jack-o-lantern types that are sold around Halloween. Those little over priced "Pie/sugar pumpkins"are popular now, but if you adjust the sugar in your recipe(s) regular pumpkins work fine and are really tasty in pies.

Clyde, I used two 20 pounders for those 19 quarts.

Rick

We do the same as Kansas Jake. Roast it as normal and freeze the pulp. It will last over a year and still taste fresh baked. I usually use butternut but would like to find an heirloom type.

Jeff

Kansas Jake said:

Not HC, but my wife often bakes a sliced up pumpkin with the skin on in the oven. She then scrapes out the meat and freezes it in freezer bags. It may be too runny for pie, but works well in other pumpkin dishes.

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What other pumpkin dishes are there besides pie...? :wink:

Cookies.................

.........and..........

Pumpkin beer.... :wink: yes, pumpkins. As early as 1771, the American Philosophical Society published a recipe for a straight "pompion ale" (as cited in the new Oxford Companion to Beer):

Let the Pompion be beaten in a Trough as Apples. The expressed Juice is to be boiled in a Copper a considerable Time and carefully skimmed that there may be no Remains of the fibrous Part of the Pulp. After that Intention is answered let the liquor be hopped cooled fermented &c. as Malt Beer.

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Black Hand said:

What other pumpkin dishes are there besides pie...? :wink:

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You could stop there and be in good shape.



There are other possibilities, though:

roasted pumpkin seeds


pumpkin butter


dried pumpkin for the trail


Spence

By the turn of the 19th century, pumpkin was still around as an ingredient, but malts and other ingredients had entered the picture. In his 1863 "History of Hadley," Sylvester Judd noted:

In Hadley, around 1800, beer was generally brewed once a week; malt, hops, dried pumpkin, dried apple parings and sometime rye bran, birch twigs and other things were put into the brewing kettle and the liquor was strained through a sieve. This beer was used at home and was carried into the fields by the farmers.

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Here's a 17th century poem about beer and pumpkins....

“If barley be wanting to make into malt / we must be content and think it no fault / for we can make liquor to sweeten our lips / of pumpkins, and parsnips, and walnut-tree chips.”

Black Hand said:

What other pumpkin dishes are there besides pie...? :wink:

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This is from Pillsbury for their canned stuff but it's a start!
https://www.pillsbury.com/everyday...ts-to-make-with-canned-pumpkin-that-arent-pie

An 1801 recipe for pumpkin fritters goes like this:

"The Pumpkin must be well boiled, left from Dinner. Take four Spoonfuls Pumpkin, two Eggs, one half Pint to more of Milk (or Cream if you wish) one or more Tablespoons of brown Sugar. Thicken with Wheat Flour about the Thickness of Batter for Waffles well beaten and light. Fry in boiling Lard two or three Spoonfuls for each Fritter. Tried and found good."

Small ones, like most squash, can be baked with a filling of stuffing or dressing, depending on where you're from!


:haha:

Great Looking Pie !

Wes/Tex said:

Black Hand said:

What other pumpkin dishes are there besides pie...? :wink:

Click to expand...

This is from Pillsbury for their canned stuff but it's a start!
https://www.pillsbury.com/everyday...ts-to-make-with-canned-pumpkin-that-arent-pie

An 1801 recipe for pumpkin fritters goes like this:

"The Pumpkin must be well boiled, left from Dinner. Take four Spoonfuls Pumpkin, two Eggs, one half Pint to more of Milk (or Cream if you wish) one or more Tablespoons of brown Sugar. Thicken with Wheat Flour about the Thickness of Batter for Waffles well beaten and light. Fry in boiling Lard two or three Spoonfuls for each Fritter. Tried and found good."

Small ones, like most squash, can be baked with a filling of stuffing or dressing, depending on where you're from!


:haha:

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There'a also pumpkin Risotto to serve with roast chicken or as an appetizer and down here the traditional Mexican empanadas but stuffed with pumpkin.