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The thick, bright orange pulp of pumpkins had long been a favorite of the Aztec, Mayan and Inca people before becoming a nourishing staple for early European settlers of the New World. A winter squash belonging to the same family (Curcurbitacae) as melons, cucumbers and gourds, pumpkins have a sweet, rich flesh perfectly suited for making pies, breads and soups. Like other hard squash, pumpkins are difficult to peel when raw. Baking or boiling the pumpkin makes it easier to cut and remove the pulp from the shell.
Making a jelly for Halloween should, ideally, make the most of what the late-autumn bounty of fruit offers. Pumpkins make an ideal base for jelly, and, in their gelled form, have a color and appearance commonly associated with Halloween celebrations. Their freshness peaks around that time of year, and fresh fruit makes a jelly superior in taste, color and texture to those comprised of out-of-season or canned fruits. You can substitute other autumn fruits for Halloween-themed jelly, or use the pumpkin as a base and combine it with fruits that complement it in color and taste.
Pumpkins, members of the squash family, are native to North America and are harvested in the autumn. People often envision pumpkins as festive harvest and Thanksgiving decorations or scary jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. While pumpkins can make fun decorations, they are also delicious to eat. When roasted, they can make a sweet and tasty treat if seasoned appropriately.
Pureeing pumpkin in a Cuisinart is accomplished using a SmartStick Hand Blender (CSB-77). The handheld device operates effortlessly. While the SmartStick Hand Blender comes with several blade and whisk attachments, use the blending assembly device for pureeing. Preparing the pumpkin for pureeing is the trick to ensure your delicious treat -- whether it is a soup or spread -- turns out smooth and wholesome.
The rich taste of pumpkin flesh is a staple in a variety of dishes during the autumn months in North America. It is used in savory foods, such as pumpkin stews, and desserts, like the perennial favorite, pumpkin pie. Historically used for thousands of years by the Native Americans, pumpkin was most commonly cooked over an open fire. This would caramelize the sugars in the gourd, giving it a more complex and sweet flavor, as well as softening the flesh in order to consume it.
Although many people consider it to be a vegetable, pumpkin is actually a fruit. While canned pumpkin is a common item in the pantry, a fresh pumpkin can be processed, with the flesh used to bake pie or cook soup. Pumpkins used for cooking should be harvested before the first hard frost. When pumpkins are ripe and ready for picking, the vines and leaves die and the shell hardens, turning from yellow to bright orange.
Pumpkin puree requires minimal prep work to prepare a smooth, velvety filling for cakes, soups and other confections. Although the most common application for pumpkin puree is classic pumpkin pie, it also serves as an integral component of several savory preparations, such as pumpkin-rosemary cream sauce, pumpkin ravioli and pumpkin-chevre cheesecake. Refining pumpkin puree by straining it through a sieve incorporates finesse into the preparation and creates a consistency and smoothness unattainable otherwise.
Raw pumpkins are not just for carving. Fresh pumpkin can be served raw in salads or prepared for use in pies and desserts as you would use canned pumpkin. A wide variety of fresh pumpkins with subtle differences in flavor await for you to try in your recipes. Pumpkin varieties include sugar, cheese, Cinderella and New England pie. Look for fresh pumpkins in markets during the fall, and choose those with a small size and large weight for their size.
Instead of throwing out your extra pumpkins after Halloween, bake them and use them in your favorite recipes. Pumpkin is very versatile and can be used in chunks or pureed and added to classic desserts, such as pumpkin pie and pumpkin bread. It is also good in savory dishes such as pumpkin soup and pumpkin chili. Once it's cooked, pumpkin is good for about five days if stored in the refrigerator.
Pumpkins are a form of curcubita, a species of plant that also include cucumbers and squash. Most people are familiar with the bright orange pumpkins displayed at Halloween, but these are only one of the many strains of pumpkin. Pumpkins can be differentiated by looking at a few simple characteristics.
When you think of eating a pumpkin, you probably think of a pumpkin pie. The seeds, soft innards and interior wall of the pumpkin are all edible. The "meat" on the inner walls of the pumpkins is perhaps one of the most neglected edible parts of the squash. Make a thick, creamy spread that goes well on toast, crackers and other pastries.
Pumpkins are a versatile vegetable that can be consumed on its own or as an ingredient in recipes such as pies, soups and breads. This gourd is packed with antioxidants, beta-carotene and a wide range of vitamins and minerals. People who cook with pumpkin often purchase canned pumpkin puree, but it's surprisingly easy to bake your own pumpkins. You can bake any pumpkin including small pumpkins marketed as baking pumpkins because of their sweet taste. Pumpkins are easiest to find in autumn, so purchase a few extra to bake and freeze the meat for use throughout the year.
Pumpkin pie is a staple on most tables at Thanksgiving and lots of people enjoy the baked treat all through the fall and winter. In modern times, most people use canned, prepared pumpkin that is purchased at the store to make their pumpkin pies. Before modern conveniences, however, fresh pumpkin was baked and turned into a puree to make pumpkin pie. This can still be done today and there are several different types of pumpkins that work perfectly in pie.
Pilgrims discovered the many uses of pumpkins, a native squash of America. Uncut pumpkins stored nicely for months making them a go-to food source. The first pumpkin pies were baked in the ground using the pumpkin's shells. Today, home cooks and chefs have mastered pumpkin pie techniques - although even the pros can occasionally deliver a flop. You can't rebake a pie, but you can dress it up a bit and hide its flaws before serving it to your hungry guests.
Pumpkins are warm season squash that are grown throughout the U.S. for centuries. Pumpkins are very healthy and are stocked with important vitamins, antioxidants and beta-carotene. Though field pumpkins work well for carving, many markets sell smaller pumpkins for cooking. With the correct preparation you can use the insides of fresh pumpkins for roasting, making pumpkins seeds and a Thanksgiving classic - pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin, like all produce, spoils when improperly stored. You may have purchased your jack-o'-lantern in mid-October or your pumpkin pie or soup ingredients three weeks before Thanksgiving only to have your pumpkin decay. If so, take heart. With optimum storage, your pumpkin will remain usable for up to six months. You can either store your pumpkin whole or remove and freeze its flesh.
White pumpkin has a firmer texture than its orange counterpart, and a potato-like consistency and taste. Grown during the autumn, white pumpkins are used as Halloween home and yard decor. When buying exotic-looking white pumpkins to decorate or carve, pick up a few for cooking as well. You can bake white pumpkin, puree its flesh, and then use it to make a mild-tasting soup base. Choose medium pumpkins for cooking, as large ones may have too stringy a texture.
Mini pumpkins not only add decoration to your table, they can also be enjoyed as an individual dessert. The flesh of a mini pumpkin is sweeter than that of large Jack-o'-lantern type pumpkins, and you can enhance the flavor by adding cinnamon and sugar, or filling the pumpkins with homemade whipped cream, pudding, chopped fresh fruit or granola. By following the steps below, you can turn a mini pumpkin into a mini dessert.
A favorite for finishing fall feasts, pumpkin pie is different from other fruit pies. Instead of chunks of fruit with a thick syrup, pumpkin pie filling has the consistency of custard. Cooking the pie too long will dry out the filling, but not cooking it long enough will make the filling spill out when you slice the pie. Find the perfect balance between these extremes by testing the pie properly before removing it from the oven.
Pumpkin juice has multiple health benefits, including lowering cholesterol with its high pectin content and boosts immunity with vitamin C. It's often used to maintain good kidney and bladder health. Pumpkin juice can be drunk by itself or mixed with other juices.
While you can get pumpkin puree to make pumpkin desserts from a can, fresh pumpkin puree from a whole pumpkin will taste fresher and have more flavor. Pumpkins, with their hard orange skins may seem like they would be tough to soften for puree. However, pumpkins simply need to be placed in the oven to bake and soften. You don't want to use the giant pumpkins that you would use to make a jack-o-lantern because those tend to be stringy and much harder to bake. Use smaller, medium and small sized pumpkins instead.
A store-bought pumpkin pie doesn't quite have the fresh, appealing taste of a homemade version. Skip the canned puree and use fresh puree from a pumpkin for an even more distinct difference in taste. Cooking the pumpkin to make the puree for your pie requires cutting the pumpkin first. After the pumpkin is appropriately cut, you can cook it in the microwave or oven and scoop out the fresh flesh to add to your pie recipe.
Take pumpkin beyond the tired, canned glob used to make the obligatory Thanksgiving pie. Pumpkin season is the perfect time of year to give up the canned variety and cook fresh, local pumpkins in unique, tasty, non-holiday recipes. Several different cooking techniques can be used, and once cooked, pumpkin flesh can be pureed in a food processor or mashed with a potato masher before being added to your delectable pumpkin recipes.
Instead of making pumpkin pie from a can, create homemade pumpkin pie from fresh pie pumpkins. These pumpkins are smaller than traditional pumpkins and have a sweeter taste. The pumpkins need to be heated to make the flesh soft. Once the flesh softens, it separates easily from the skin. The flesh then needs to be pureed for the filling. Spices, sugar, condensed milk and other ingredients add flavor to the pumpkin pie filling.
Pumpkin pie is a popular dish during holiday times. Canned pumpkin has made it easy to turn out a decent pie at any time of the year, but pie from fresh pumpkin is still special. Do this in fall, when fresh pie pumpkins are available. Pie pumpkins are small cultivars with dense, sweet flesh that bakes up to a rich and flavorful pulp. Don't use the large, stringy pumpkins that are grown for jack-o'-lanterns. Ask the produce manager at your supermarket or the farmers at your local farmer's market.
Every year about 47,900 acres are used in the United States to grow pumpkins. In 2006, that represented an overall value of production of approximately $101 million. The main uses for pumpkins are eating and decoration. If you are planting pumpkins in your garden and you are planning to use them as decoration, you probably want them to have a nice and uniform orange color. However, despite your best efforts some pumpkins may not turn orange and may remain green on the vine.
When pumpkin season arrives with the fall harvest, it is the time to bake a pumpkin pie using the flesh of this orange vegetable. However, the list of ingredients in pumpkin pie recipes differs when you replace widely available canned pumpkin puree with a fresh pumpkin. When picking out your pumpkin, choose a smaller pumpkin, such as those named pie pumpkins, instead of bigger pumpkins that are used for jack-o-lanterns. As pumpkins grow, the insides produce seeds rather than more juicy pumpkin flesh and smaller pumpkins have a sweeter flavor.
Canned crab, though not as meaty as tuna, can replace canned tuna in any recipe. During the canning process, the food inside is cooked. This means that when you replace canned tuna with canned crab, you will not have to do any additional cooking. Price makes a difference with canned crab. Higher priced canned crab usually has fewer pieces of shell in the meat. Choose these brands instead of the cheapest canned crab if possible.
Pureed pumpkin can serve as a less fatty and more flavorful alternative to oil in many recipes. It does not work in every case; you cannot deep-fry items in pumpkin puree, for example, nor use it to grease a pan or baking dish. In other dishes, however, it replaces the moistness of the oil while lending a distinctive color and flavor all its own. Try it in cakes, breads and other similar items.
If you enjoy cooking from scratch -- or have an extra pumpkin lying around that you do not want to waste -- consider using a real pumpkin to replace canned pumpkin in any recipe. Doing this takes more work, as you will need to prepare the pumpkin yourself. On the other hand, it gives you significantly more control over the final product, especially compared to spiced canned pumpkin. When you make your own, you can add spices to suit your palate and the recipe.
Pumpkin pie is without a doubt the most popular Thanksgiving dessert, and there are as many ways to make it as there are families. Some people buy frozen ones and simply pop them in the oven, others make semi-homemade pies by mixing canned pumpkin with eggs and evaporated milk. Truly homemade pumpkin pies start with nice, fresh and fleshy pie pumpkin. Just cool and add homemade whipped cream to enjoy your newest holiday tradition.
Making pasta at home can seem intimidating, but it's really fairly simple once you get the hang of it. While semolina flour is more traditional for dry pasta, it can be tough to work with for beginners; using a eggy flour pasta is more ideal for making fresh pasta. Pumpkin ravioli are a delicious specialty from the Verona region of Italy, where they are usually paired with a sage brown butter sauce.
