Home, Family, Cooking, and Education

Saturday, September 25, 2010

What to do With a Pumpkin?






What to Do With a Pumpkin:
You may see the darling little pumpkins at the store called pie or sugar pumpkins. These can of course be carved and added to your normal pumpkin motif to create size and height variation, but they are also delicious! It is so easy to roast and use a pumpkin! Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper for easy clean up. Cut the top off your pumpkin like you would when carving it and then cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds (save-see note below or roast them for yesterday's FOOD IDEA). Drizzle the interior flesh with olive oil and season with salt and pepper, and if you want, I like to use a little curry powder. If you are using the pumpkin for a sweet dish, don"t use the salt or pepper and you can add things like nutmeg or cinnamon. Place the pumpkin cut side down on the lined baking sheet and roast for about 35-45 min. or until the skin is so soft that it sinks in a bit and the flesh is tender enough to easily pierce with a fork. When it is done, let it cool for a while and the skin will peel right off in large chinks. You are left with gorgeous soft pumpkin! You can cut it up and eat as is, or puree it for sauces, pies, or breads. Last night I pureed it in the food processor with some heavy cream, then sauteed it with a bit of garlic and olive oil for a fantastic pumpkin cream pasta sauce. Let your imagination run and try roasted pumpkin tonight!
Print Friendly and PDF

4 comments:

Canarella said...

Great share just made my first pumpkin from scratch last week it was so good and also made my first pie crust from scratch 56 and just starting....xoxo

Unknown said...

Great Ideas! The smaller pumpkins are also the best ones for canning. The larger ones just don't have that delicious sweet meat on their rinds. Pumpkin pasta is also a favorite in our house. Heck, anything pumpkins tops my list of things to eat in the fall.

Alison said...

I've always walked right by the pumpkins thinking "what would I do with that?". Maybe I'll pick some up. Thanks.

Rachael and Family said...

never knew how to get the pumpkin off the shell. and pasta sauce out of pumpkin sounds amazing. I'm going to try it.

Online Cooking Classes

Online Cooking Classes
Click here for more information