Tastes Like Food

I like making things from scratch. I figure the fresher it is, the better it is. And I’ve always been curious to try turning pie pumpkins into pumpkin puree that could be used for pie or bread. This year, some of my neighbors and I purchased a CSA share (community supported agriculture), and we received a lot of pie pumpkins all at once. It seemed the right time to try turning small pumpkins into pumpkin mash.

Here’s what I did. I put 3 washed, unpeeled, whole pie pumpkins in the oven and baked them at 400° for 90 minutes. They were fairly soft at this point, I tested them by piercing the skin with a fork. I removed them from the oven and let them cool for a few minutes. I sliced each in half and scooped out the center part full of seeds and strings. I scooped the pumpkin out from the skins and put the mash in a big bowl.

Two cups were baked into pumpkin pie that day as-is, but the pie turned out to have some pumpkin strings, despite baking for an hour. So I decided to prepare the rest to be a less stringy and freeze them for later baking fun. (Note: If you have a food processer, you can theoretically puree the cooked pumpkin mash in it to get the right consistency and eliminate strings. However, I don’t have a food processor.)

I put the rest of the pumpkin mash in a pot, added a little Rice Dream (rice milk) and simmered on low for 10 or 15 minutes, stirring and smashing larger chunks against the pan sides with a fork occassionally. The mixture would be used for baking, so the rice milk would be fine flavor-wise. And Milk is an ingredient in baking both pumpkin bread and pumpkin pie, so I would leave it out at that point, since it’s already in this mixture. I let this much smoother puree cool in the pot for a while. Then, I measured 1 cup increments of the puree and bagged and labelled the units for the freezer. (My favorite pumpkin bread recipe uses 1 cup, my favorite pumpkin pie receipe uses 2 cups. Check your recipes when measuring increments to freeze.)

Tip for freezing liquid or squishy things in plastic freezer bags:
I poke the corners of the bags in toward the center. This way when pumpkin puree or other liquid freezes, the corners aren’t sharp dagger that will pierce other items or break off.

Takes time, but pretty easy. Making the puree certainly takes longer than opening a can of pumpkin. However, if you plan for that, it’s really quite easy.