10 October 2008

Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin

As soon as Joanna put up her post for Pumpkin Scones, and at the same time Pioneer Woman had up posts about making pumpkin puree and pumpkin butter, I knew I had to try some pumpkin things here! I have never made my own pumpkin puree - I always just buy a can at the store! But I was feeling adventurous and decided to go for it.

I started by cutting up the pumpkins (I got sugar pie pumpkins) and scraping the pulp and seeds out. I was so excited about this project! So imagine my dismay when I opened the second one and found this:

Rotten!! I was especially horrified because I bought these pumpkins at Whole Foods when I was in another part of town for a meeting. I wasn't about to drive 40 minutes back to Whole Foods for my refund, but man was it tempting. These pumpkins weren't cheap! So I only got to roast one pumpkin. After it roasted, I pureed it in my food processor.

I immediately made Pumpkin Butter. I love it - so yummy. But the recipe makes so much more than I thought it would. And it had too much sugar and not enough pumpkin or spice, for my liking anyway. Look how great this turned out:

Don't you just want to take a big bite of that toast right now? Actually, I wish you could. I'll never finish all this pumpkin butter before it goes bad. Do you think I can freeze it? I didn't know with the yogurt in it if it would freeze okay or not.

If you are wondering about the yield from one pie pumpkin, I used about 1 1/2 cups for the pumpkin butter, separated out the 1/2 c up I'll need for Joanna's scone recipe, 2 cups to make my favorite treat which is basically pumpkin pie filling cooked in an 8X8 glass dish without a crust. I serve it up in squares with fresh whipping cream on top! Mmmmm...and I don't feel so guilty about eating it, since without the crust it is fairly healthy. It's a vegetable, right? Anyway, after portioning out all of that, I still had 1 1/3 cups left.

So, in total, I got 5 1/3 cups of puree. The pumpkin butter is good, but the real test for me will come when I make the pie filling. I want to see if the flavor/texture/quality is really better. Enough that it could justify the extra cost and work from buying canned. If I do think it is enough better, I am going to try some larger, cheaper varieties of squash to see if I still like the results. I did some research, and it seems that most canned pumpkin is actually butternut squash! Who knew?

Of course, I saved the seeds and roasted those up, too. Wow, are they tasty. How long do you think this one, small bowl will last??? I really needed that second pumpkin!

3 comments:

Joanna said...

YEAH!!!!! We just got three pumpkins to roast and puree. I'm going to make pumpkin butter for breakfast tomorrow.

I think the pumpkin butter would be fine frozen.

Joanna said...

And soooo sad about the other pumpkin. :(

Kainoa said...

You should call Whole foods, maybe they would send you a gift card or something. That pumpkin butter looks absolutely delicious!