All you poopyheads talking about toasting and gobbling up pumpkin seeds have made me want to toast some of my own. But I can’t justify wasting a whole pumpkin just for the seeds (we’re not doing the candy thing on Monday, so it would be a tease for putting out a jack o’lantern). What I need to know is:
How do I make a pumpkin pie from fresh pumpkin?
Is fresh pumpkin vastly different in flavor from canned?
Can I cook and then freeze the pumpkin for later use, or do I freeze it raw?
Is there a difference in flavor between a pie pumpkin and the ones used for jack o’lanterns?
I may have more questions as the thread progresses…
Jack o’lantern pumpkins are bred for size, not flavor - get the little pie pumpkins. IMO, making pie from fresh pumpkin is a hell of a hassle, and canned pumpkin has excellent flavor*, but if you’re determined to do this, you really need to pick the pumpkin type with the best flavor.
Most every resource I’ve seen on the subject says to go ahead and use canned for pies.
Butternut pumpkins are absolutely marvellous roasted. You can get seeds from them for the pumpkin seed project and it’s a pretty small amount of pumpkin flesh to deal with (and again may I say marvellous roasted?) compared to one of the big jack’o’lantern suckers. I’m yet to see any of the other good just-for-eating pumpkin varieties I’m used to in the US so that’s the best bet I know of.
I’m looking at Lute’s link… Yeah, that looks like a PITA. Now I’m rethinking this whole thing.
The only pumpkins I’ve seen at the grocery store are the Jack O’Lantern & pie pumpkins. Never even heard of butternut pumpkins. Speaking of butternut, I have a butternut squash in the kitchen. I suppose I could just toast the seeds from that little guy. Not a lot of seeds, though. And they may taste different to pumpkin seeds.
What about buying raw pumpkin seeds at my local hippy store? How would I go about toasting them up? I’m assuming I would toss the seeds in some melted butter & salt (or other seasonings) and toast them on a baking sheet at around 325, right? Which brings me to this question: When toasting seeds, do you let them dry out, or do you toast them wet? Does it make any difference?
Same as with canned pumpking, only you have to cook the pumpkin first. I just cut it up, seed it, and throw it in the oven until it’s soft - same as I’d cook any squash, really, except I refrain from putting all the butter and maple syrup and brown sugar on it that I do when I’m gonna eat the squash.
Not that I can tell. I grew up with made-from-scratch pumpkin, and I never, ever used canned. Except that one year, when I was in a hurry. And the pies came out exactly the same.
I just use the cans now. It makes no sense to go through all the trouble of seeding and cooking a pumpkin when the canned stuff tastes the same. Just make sure you get plain canned pumpkin, not the pre-spiced stuff.
I’d cook it and freeze it, just cuz that’s easier. Not sure if raw pumpkin freezes.
Yes, the pie pumpkin flesh is denser and a little less watery - making it more flavorful in the long run. It’s possible to make pies out of jack o lantern pumpkins, but you have to kind of cook it down a bit to make it less watery.
I think I’m definitely going to skip this project. I can live without toasted pumpkin seeds & there are so few seeds in a butternut that it’s hardly worth the effort of toasting those… Sigh.
As far as I know we don’t have canned pumpkin in Australia but you can buy several varieties at any greengrocer or supermarket. Here we have butternut pumpkin which I believe Americans call butternut squash. It is sweeter and smoother when mashed than any other variety. Years ago a bunch of us put on a Thanksgiving dinner for some Americans working here. I used butternut for the pie assuming any variety would be OK. The general response was that it was better than using pumpkin.
I have made a few since over the years but have never tried other pumpkin.
Our gardener in Uganda grew pumpkins in the yard that didn’t look at all like the orange variety we’re all used to. They were small and striped, and when roasted with butter, were delicious. I’ve never seen this variety in the US.