Eat Your Pumpkins Part 1: Get Ready

This is the time of year when we all lose our minds over the crazy beauty of the pumpkin crop that’s been quietly on the sidelines of the field all summer long. The shapes and colors and abundance of it all never gets old. I love to make a little display on my front porch or a fun table top decoration. And I know I’m not alone.

A mix of savory and dessert heritage pumpkins from our farm

When you are finished looking at them, don’t just toss them out. That’s a crime when pumpkins are so delicious.

In this three part blog series, I want to set you up for culinary success and help you enjoy all the amazing pumpkin flavors with your friends and family.

With a little time prepping your pumpkins in advance, you’ll have an amazing ingredient at your fingertips throughout fall and winter for knock out desserts, fun -creative breakfasts, and stunning savory dishes for easy weeknight dinners and impressive dinner parties.

Let’s get started!

Choose the right pumpkin

Ordinary jack-o-lanterns are edible but not the best for cooking. The flesh is thin and stringy and they lack the flavor of the old cooking varieties. So, you really want to stick to heirlooms that are bred for cooking and good eating.

Fortunately, the heirloom types are the most interesting visually anyway, so it’s worth going out of your way and paying a little extra, if needed, to seek them out.

Culinary pumpkins come in two “flavors”: savory and sweet.

They can be interchangeable as far as cooking goes. But be aware that dessert pumpkins are surprisingly sweet and won’t be as good in your savory recipes.

Likewise, you’ll need to add more sugar to the savory varieties if you want to make them into a pie or custard.

The vast majority of heirloom pumpkins are on team savory. Some of my favorites include: Long Island Cheese, Marina di Chioggia, Rouge Vif D'Etampes, Speckled Hound, and Black Futsu. But there are many more. Have fun experimenting.

On team sweet, the hands down best pie pumpkin ever is the very old heritage variety, Winter Luxury. They are a small pumpkin with a characteristic webbing pattern. Typically 1 pumpkin is the perfect size for 1 pie. And, they are so sweet, you barely need to add sugar. You can get Sugar Baby pumpkins in the grocery store and they are nice too. But, nothing beats a good Winter Luxury if you can find one.

Whichever you choose, the process for getting your pumpkin ready to cook is the same.

Step 1: Clean Your Pumpkin

Wash your pumpkin under the sink or with a hose outside to rinse off any remaining dirt from the field. Then hack it in half with a big sharp knife or a hatchet.

You can see how thick the walls are in a culinary pumpkin, like this Long Island Cheese, compared to the thin and easy to carve jack-o-lanterns that you may be used to.

Use a spoon to scoop out the guts.

The contents of the Long Island Cheese that I cut in half

Pull the seeds free from the guts and clean them under running water until there is no pumpkin clinging to them any more. Save them because we’ll have some fun with those seeds too. You can toss the guts on your compost pile or feed it to chickens if you have a backyard flock.

Clean pumpkin seeds

Sidebar: Pumpkin seeds are delicious

Toss the cleaned seeds lightly in an oil of your choice, season to taste with salt and any other spices you like. You can dust them with a bit of chili powder, sage, black pepper, whatever you like. Get creative. I love a bit of Maharaja Curry powder from Penzy’s myself.

Spread them on a cookie sheet and roast in a low oven (250-300 degrees F)

Keep checking on them and remove when they are crunchy. It takes a while for them to dry out. So leave them at least 20 minutes and then keep an eye.

Cool, and eat. They are a delicious and nutritious fall snack.

Follow the same process when you carve jack-o-lanterns with the kids. They’ll have fun eating the seeds as part of the process.

If you are a gardener and you started with an heirloom variety pumpkin, set some seeds aside to dry, store for the winter and plant them yourself next year. The seeds should come true and reward you with your own pumpkins in the new season.

Step 2 Roast the Pumpkin

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.

Place the pumpkin halves cut side down into a roasting pan.

Cover them snug with foil. This is important. I’ve found that pumpkins roast faster and more evenly if you seal them in tightly.

Pop it in the oven and roast until the pumpkin soft and cooked through. The cooking time will vary wildly depending on the size and density of your pumpkin. It can take some time - like an hour or more.

Here is my pumpkin wrapped tightly in it’s foil and ready to go into the oven.
After cooking for a while, you can test if it is done without unwrapping it by poking it with your finger to see if it gives.

Step 3 Prepare the pulp

Once the pumpkin has cooled, scoop out the pulp and discard the collapsed peel. Like the guts, the peel is now compost or chicken food.

Let the pulp rest a bit in the fridge so that some of the water separates out - pour off that extra liquid to give yourself a more concentrated product.

Whiz it all through a food processor or blender. If you have a Vitamix, that is my favorite way to go. This important step smooths out the fibers and gives you a nice even consistency that will pay off later.

Step 4 Pre-measure and freeze

Most recipes call for 1 cup of pumpkin pulp.

So, I measure the pulp out in 1 cup units.

Put 1 cup of pulp into a quart size zip lock freezer bag. Label with the amount, date, type of pumpkin, and freeze. If you lay the bags flat, they stack up nicely in the freezer.

Pre-measured pulp ready to go into the freezer for later.

Now you are ready to grab and go for all of your recipes throughout the season.

I talked to someone at the Farmers Market who said she pre-roasted and froze a pumpkin once. But she froze the entire pumpkin in a single container. So, when she took it out for a recipe, she was overwhelmed and ended up wasting a lot - vowing to never do that again. Anyway, my pre-measured packets will spare you that trouble and help make life easy later.

Get Ready

I hope you are inspired to enjoy the beauty of the season’s pumpkins and to stock your freezer because I’ll be back with tips on how to make some beautiful desserts, and stunning fall dinners featuring your new pumpkin stockpile.

Have fun cooking.