Pumpkin Weekend

Well this is old news for anyone who follows me on facebook, but I feel like I spent my entire weekend thinking about and working with pumpkins. The little patch in my parents' garden put out twelve small pumpkins. Although my parents, the ones with gardening know how, were gone for the weekend (on their first vacation alone since before I was born!), one of the things they asked us to do while they were gone was to pick the pumpkins, haul them inside, and work on turning them into something other than decorations.

We did our best at picking them - though two got left behind as they were a little iffy looking. Thankfully, Mom and Dad will be home tonight to let us know if they're still okay or if we should do something else with them. Five came to my house, and five are still sitting in my parents' garage waiting for me to get to them.

Freshly washed

The first several posts I found about making pumpkin puree said the best thing to do was to wash them, cut them in halves or quarters, then bake them with a little water for 50-60 minutes at 350 degrees. So, that's what I did.

But after 60 minutes when I checked to see if the pumpkin was easily pierced by a knife, the answer was 'not really.' So, I let them cook longer. And longer. Until after two hours, when I gave up and pulled them out.

Even though things weren't going quite according to plan, I kept following the directions. Allow to cool turned in to 'watch two Star Wars movies with the guys,' so even though I scooped the pumpkin out of the skin before going to bed, things like running the food processor got put off overnight.

Looking in the blue bowl, it seemed like those two little pumpkins were hardly worth the effort... but I was determined to finish the process before passing judgement.

My food processor is fairly small and old, and up until this weekend I've only used it when making salsa or watermelon sorbet, so this was a bit of a test for it.

(I had to switch to my cell phone as this was the moment my camera battery ran down. I really wish it would make a sound at some point in the running-low cycle instead of relying on me to pay attention to the little battery indicator. Despite the fact that I'm usually more visual, I never think to check unless we're getting ready for a weekend out or something big.)

I had to add some water to the pumpkin in order to get it really pureed (but the directions I was following had prepared me for that), but I think it turned out alright.

So, I went ahead and cut up a third pumpkin and started it baking. And a couple hours later, while it was cooling and awaiting a trip to the food processor, I decided to finish my pumpkin puree test run the only way that seemed right - baking with it!

A Google search of pumpkin bread took me to this Pumpkin Gingerbread Recipe from Simply Recipes. I've been wanting to make gingerbread cookies ever since Offbeat Home shared a recipe for Gingerbread Bats (which looks amazing, but more intensive than my usual kitchen endeavors), so the idea of pumpkin + gingerbread was perfect.

Except I don't have molasses.

Google to the rescue again. Turns out honey is an acceptable substitute (though obviously a honey version would lose some of the flavor needed for real gingerbread). This was great for me, since I'd just discovered our honey was getting a little grainy (which I don't like on waffles or sandwiches, which makes me use less of it, which doesn't help the problem). So, honey it was.

Other than that small change, I followed the recipe (omitting the raisins and minced candied ginger, because I learned only after putting it in the oven that my husband actually does like candied ginger) and 60 minutes later a dense looking loaf of bread was cooling on my counter top.

Yes, it's a little dense - I probably should have made some high altitude adjustments. But. It. Is. Delicious.

Around my house, it is next to unheard of for something to actually cool the suggested amount of time before I'm cutting in to it. I made it ten minutes after taking it out of the pan (so twenty total) before I could no longer resist. So worth it. My husband's response? "Forget Level 90, I want to make another loaf!"

Now that it's cooler, it's still good - but I think in our next loaf (Monday evening if all goes well), we'll try using 3/4 or 1/2 stick melted butter instead of a whole stick. It's not bad, but it's just slightly more buttery than I want it to be - especially since I want to spread butter on top. Oh, we'll also be adding that candied ginger.

But in terms of homemade pumpkin puree performance? Excellent. Also, in terms of taste? Excellent.

I don't know how I'll keep working on the pumpkins with work this week, but I'm going to keep picking away on them as best I can. Which probably means I can expect the kitchen to remain in its current state of being more or less orange for the rest of the week, but there are worse things than a sink full of pumpkin-colored dishes to wash. Like letting pumpkins go to waste in the garage!