A month or so ago we bought a pumpkin. Although it was the basic shape of an ordinary pumpkin it was very pale almost beige in color. When I cut it open to cook it – it was very orange and when I made a pie it was delicious to eat. So we decided we needed to do it again. At the store today they did not have small pumpkins but large ones cut in pieces. Sometimes they do that here – kind of like what they do with watermelon in the states.
So here is a piece of pumpkin as it came from the store wrapped in plastic wrap and another cut and ready to bake on our little baking sheets.
Here it is in our little oven – just the right size.
Our cookie sheets are about half the size of the ones I have in storage and it is good because as you can see a larger one would not fit in our little oven. In fact I had to cut the pieces in half to put them in the oven or they were too tall. It took most of the day (with baking bread and a banana cake in between) to get them all cooked and pureed but finally (it is 9pm now) we have pumpkin ready to make into pies or cupcakes or bread or ….
The two jars on the left are quart jars. The one on the right is much bigger but maybe not twice the size. The little bag behind has what is left of the skins to dry out before throwing away. You can see the pumpkin is bright orange.
So it smells like pumpkin – tastes like pumpkin – looks like pumpkin. I am excited to bake with it. I plan to have pumpkin pie again for our Christmas dinner. We are also hoping to try one of what we think might be a small turkey – assuming they have them next week when we go shopping. In some ways I feel like a pioneer – making it all last and making do with what we have. I like the feeling. However, I also like the easy way of opening a can. We will see what happens when we get back into our own house and I can choose.