PREPARING FRESH PUMPKIN

Preparing Fresh Pumpkin image

This is for anyone, from experienced to the inexperienced. For those that want to continue cooking from scratch & for those that are just learning. I myself just love it when I find a new hint or tip that I have never seen or heard of. I have found that the best pumpkins to use are the Heritage Pumpkins as they are the very sweetest. If you can't find a Heritage Pumpkin at the farmers market, the small ones tend to be very sweet. If you don't have pumpkin available you can use Hubbard Squash instead. **Did you know that most of your canned pumpkin in the store is really Hubbard Squash?

Provided by Linda Kauppinen @cyrene

Number Of Ingredients 3

Ingredients

- herritage pumpkin or
- small pumpkins or
- blue hubbard squash

Steps:

BOILING METHOD: Clean and peel pumpkin or squash. Discard seeds and stringy material from inside. Cut into small pieces and boil like potatoes until the pumpkin/squash is soft. Strain after cooking. Puree pumpkin in a blender. (Can be frozen)
BAKING METHOD #1: Cut an access hole of about 3-4 inch radius around the stem. Remove this piece, scoop out seeds and stringy material from the inside and discard. Place cleaned pumpkin/squash on a roasting pan or other oven-ready pan with deep sides. Bake at 350 degrees for about 1 hour or until pumpkin/squash appears to be collapsing and softening. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Scoop out the meat with a large spoon. Discard skin. Puree pumpkin/squash meat in a food processor. **NOTE: this method is much easier than the boiling method above. It goes significantly faster and leaves a fairly dry puree that can be used directly without further concentration. The resulting puree is also more healthy and flavorful since the flavor wasn't boiled out with the vitamins.
BAKING METHOD #2: (my preferred method) NOTE: This is probably overall the best and fastest way to do it! Slice pumpkin/squash in half. Remove all seeds and string. Place both halves on a cookie sheet and place in a 425 degree oven. Cook for about 30 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool to around room temperature. Scoop out the pumpkin/squash meat with an ice cream scoop. It will be stringy. Chop it up with a Braun hand mixer until it's reasonably chopped. You can't get all the stringiness out with the hand mixer, so when it's processed with the hand mixer, put the result in a food processor and puree it for about 1-2 minutes until all the stringiness is chopped away.
**NOTE: Use any of these methods in your recipes calling for pumpkin or freeze it in 1-2 cup amounts until needed.