Cooking with Pumpkins

Hans Quistorff wrote:My pumpkins have hulless seeds so while drying the seeds I also dehydrate the flesh. It requires no other cooking. I have decided the most efficient method is chop it in squares and triangles that fit on my mandoline and slice it down to the skin which I compost. For making pumpkin lour I use the french fry blade and they dehydrate to match stick size which powders easily in a coffee mill when I am grinding my other seeds. I had fun passing around the chips and asking people to guess what they were. They can be dusted with pumpkin pie spice for snacks

So glad I saw this. I have been trying out hulless seeded pumpkins and was wondering how to harvest the seeds. What is the flavour of the pumpkin like?

Pumpkin noodles are pretty popular at my house. Just add a heaping spoonful of pumpkin puree to your favorite noodle dough. The taste is subtle enough it should blend with any recipe you use it for.

It's been a few years since I had a big enough squash crop to be worth it. This year's was a bust, only 5 small pumpkins out of the entire patch, and 2 of them rotted while curing. I'm hoping next year will be better.

I've been watching a lot of YouTubes on Chinese rural life and cooking and I've seen a few videos now that use steamed and mashed pumpkin as an ingredient in yeast-raised bread.  I haven't tried it yet, but it goes about the same as adding mashed potatoes to a bread recipe.  None of the videos I've watched so far have had measurements, but Googling "Chinese pumpkin buns" gave me a good starting point.  Here's one video of buns with a red bean filling and here's one with plain steamed buns that look like little pumpkins (plus it has two other ways of using pumpkin in the video, a rice porridge and ribs cooked in the pumpkin itself).

In the same vein, I've tried making tortillas/ gorditas with mashed pumpkin and masa harina with limited success.  The dough was a little too moist to press correctly (I use a pie plate and plastic wrap on the counter since I don't have a press), but when I hand-patted it and fried them they were pretty good, though a bit dry because they were a little too thick.  Next time I might add more water and let the dough hydrate longer, or maybe make it more like a batter and try doing it like a crepe.

Burra Maluca wrote:I've just bought some of Carol Deppe's Oregon Homestead Sweetmeat seeds, and I want to try her recipe for crustless pumpkin pie.  

Here's a link - Perfect Pumpkin Pie

I've tried her pie. I like the fact that it has so many eggs in it that it can be considered a meal. But I found the ginger overpowering, and mine came out way too sweet. I also am not fond of nutmeg, but that's a personal preference. Everybody has some flavors that they just can't stand.

I cut way back on the ginger, eliminated the nutmeg, and added a little ground mace instead. I also held off on the sugar and eggs until the other ingredients were mixed, then tasted to see if it needed sweetener. Depending on your squash and how long it's been curing, you may find it sweet enough as-is. Otherwise, add sugar a little at a time to taste. After getting the sweetness figured out, then add the eggs.

The one time I skipped the tasting step and just assumed it was one of my super-sweets, it turned out I grabbed the wrong package from the freezer. I'd grabbed the squash that had cracked while ripening, and thus hadn't cured at all. That pie tasted more like spiced mayonnaise than pumpkin pie!

S Tonin wrote:

In the same vein, I've tried making tortillas/ gorditas with mashed pumpkin and masa harina with limited success.  The dough was a little too moist to press correctly (I use a pie plate and plastic wrap on the counter since I don't have a press), but when I hand-patted it and fried them they were pretty good, though a bit dry because they were a little too thick.  Next time I might add more water and let the dough hydrate longer, or maybe make it more like a batter and try doing it like a crepe.

I've seen some made successfully with wheat flour instead of masa harina.

Since my pumpkin harvest I've made a couple batches of pumpkin soup with wild rice, onions, a diced smoked sausage and lots of sage. Just add cream, condensed milk or powdered milk at the end.

In previous years I've baked it stuffed with sausage and cheese, pasta sauce/sausage/cheese, and butter/sugar/cinnamon

This chicken with pumpkin and mushrooms recipe is a staple in our house from fall through spring. We often sub in butternut squash, if anyone is fortunate enough to have a glut of those.

This is the prefect time of year for Pumpkin Pie Soup:

Whole Pumpkin Pie Soup - Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown

This past weekend I made some pumpkin & sweet potato empanadas. Ate a few. Froze the rest for easy meals later. Yum.

Mandy Launchbury-Rainey wrote:

Hans Quistorff wrote:My pumpkins have hulless seeds so while drying the seeds I also dehydrate the flesh. It requires no other cooking. I have decided the most efficient method is chop it in squares and triangles that fit on my mandoline and slice it down to the skin which I compost. For making pumpkin lour I use the french fry blade and they dehydrate to match stick size which powders easily in a coffee mill when I am grinding my other seeds. I had fun passing around the chips and asking people to guess what they were. They can be dusted with pumpkin pie spice for snacks

So glad I saw this. I have been trying out hulless seeded pumpkins and was wondering how to harvest the seeds. What is the flavour of the pumpkin like?

The seeds I started with produced pumpkins with slight orange color and pumpkin tast but many were mor like mallow squash. I selected to pumpkin color but unless thoroughly cured and ripe the flesh is more like zucchini.
To harvest the seeds scoop them out of the cavity and squeeze the overy material to pop them out to spread out to dry.

Pumpkin is really good for dogs.  It helps with constipation and anal glands.

I didn’t see any mention of how beneficial feeding pumpkins to dogs and cats can be.  I add a large scoop of cooked mashed pumpkin to my dog food every day. Freshly cooked when I have them or from about 50 quarts that I can each year for him. I’ve also dehydrated slices of pumpkin that I give to him as chew treats.