The Pumpkin Process

Today, between taking care of my sickly baby girl and my busy-body boy, I'm getting a little pumpkin processing done. We received six beautiful little pumpkins from our community sustained agriculture program (CSA, for short) and I've just got a hankerin' for pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake, pumpkin bread and pumpkin seeds.

Processing pumpkins is just so easy and completely worth it because the pumpkin puree produced is just so fresh and yummy. Do I like pumpkin from the can? Yes, I do. In a pinch I'd use it, have used it, and will use it in the future. But when fresh pumpkins are on hand, there's nothin' better.

I like to rinse off the outside of the pumpkin -- even though we aren't going to eat it -- because there's a bit of dirt on the rind and I don't want that to mingle with the pumpkin once it's in the oven.

The next step, the step where you cut up the pumpkin and scoop out the seeds, can be done using varying techniques, so I'll just show you how I like to do it. First, I like to cut out the stem like this, using this knife (because it's serrated and small and pointed... all bode well for this particular step):

  

Remember carving Halloween pumpkins? Same thing. However, make sure you cut out the little stemmy circle on the bottom of the pumpkin as well in the same fashion.

Then I like to take my big knife (I'm sure it has a name, and I worked in restaurants for years so I should know it, but I don't, and we're all about just making do with what we have here, which includes the limited knowledge in my head) and cut it in half from top to bottom:

 Easy peasy. By the way, sharpen your knives! It will make your life so much easier and enjoyable, albeit slightly more dangerous.

Next, I scoop out the pulp and seeds with a regular kitchen spoon. But again, work with what'cha got for this. My spoons are a bit oversized so they work well for this, for me.

 

Save those seeds! I'm sure I could do a little research and spin you all kinds of tales about their nutritional value, but I've got a sickly little girl and a busy-body boy running around here, remember? So, being strapped for time, I'm not going to do that. Just take my word for it. Save them. Roast them. Eat them. They're good. I'll even tell you how to do it.

Now all you need to do is position these happy little pumpking halves, skin-sides up, on a baking sheet, then put a enough water in your pan so that it comes up the side of the pan a 1/4 inch or so.

I've roasted pumpkins with the skin-sides down as well, without water, and they turned out just fine. But I think that roasting them with the skins up and with a bit of water in the pan helps the pumpkin come out a bit more tender and smooth.

Place the pumpkin halves in your oven and bake on the middle rack at around 375 degrees (I say around because all ovens vary, but 375 works well in mine) for anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour or even longer (depending on how many halves you're roasting) until the pumpkin is tender, tender, tender. When done, your little orange beauties will look a little somethin' like this:

 

These are happy roasted pumpkins. These roasted pumpkins, however, are not quite so happy...

I roasted this pan on the bottom rack. They came out a bit drier, and as you can obviously see, a bit burned on the edges. Luckily, the slightly drier texture shouldn't matter much, and I can easily cut away the burned edges. Whew.

Learn from my mistakes... They will increase your knowledge by leaps and bounds. 

Now comes the hard part. Calm yourself. Take a few deep breaths and relax. Even though you're all revved up to scoop out that pulp and get it into the food processor, you must practice patience, grasshopper. I know, I know, it's hard. At least it is for me. I've burned many a finger because of overzealous pumpkin and squash scooping. So, learn from my hard earned experience and just wait a bit until they're cool enough to handle.

Then, scoop out some pumpkin and fill your food processer about 1/3 full and puree pumpkin until smooth, then transfer pumpkin to a bowl and continue this process until all pumpkin is used. (Get it? Process? Because we're using a food processor? I crack myself up. Except that was pretty lame. Sorry, I'll stop.)

Sidenote: Once upon a time I was a microbiology major. Graduated with a degree in it, actually. And you know what I learned? Not much that I can remember... Bad long-term memory and lack of putting it into practice contributed to that sad fact. But combine the little that I do remember with my past restaurant experience and the two manifest themselves in one sad way: I am kind of a germophobe. (Again, I could probably research the 'real' name for this condition, but I'm strapped for time, remember?)

I spend my travels throughout my kitchen trying hard not to cross-contaminate, to practice proper heating and cooling techniques, and all kinds of other germophobic activities that would bore you to tears. (I hear you sobbing already, from the boredom. And from the bad processing joke. Bear with me. I'm almost through.)

So, in the name of 'properly cooling', I do this: I puree the pumpkin not only until smooth, but also long enough to let the majority of the steam out of it. Just take the plug (again, I'm sure there's a more correct term for this) out of the processor spout to let the steam escape, and let the food processor run until it seems like it has stopped steaming.

"That's it?" you say. "All that background information just to tell me that?" Yep.

Finally, we arrive at our end product for this post, pumpkin puree! Oooo... Look...

 

Those six little pumpkins made about 10 cups of puree. I'm planning on using some of it right away, but I will also freeze some to hide away for those mid-winter pumpkin pie, pumpkin cake and pumpkin bread cravings. I'm almost positive a pumpkin pie post is on the near horizon. Stay tuned!