Time to scavenge for pumpkins....
Seems the trend this year was for everyone to buy several small baking pumpkins and heirloom squashes for decorations rather than to carve big pumpkins for jack-o-lanterns. They will all be thrown away between now and Thanksgiving. SO, today I began asking the neighbors (around my mom's house in the NC sandhills... I don't really have neighbors where I live) if they had plans for them or would be throwing them away. So far, none plant to cook them - what a waste of food! So, I asked them to place them at the end of their drive ways when they are through with them and I'll be glad to pick them up. I got some funny looks, but I just answered, "I LOVE pie!" Which, is true. But, I also love pumpkin roasted or dried and added to to soups, cooked with roasted meats... even do a leftover turkey and pumpkin ravioli in sage and butter sauce which is phenomenal! The seeds are also very good soaked in slat water then baked until crispy - better than sunflower seeds. I have some good pumpkin beer recipes, pumpkin bread recipes, pumpkin pudding, savory pumpkin soufflé,... even a chicken soup cooked in the pumpkin itself. Do y'all have any good pumpkin recipes? If not, they make great free chicken feed, too.
Comments
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I have a pumpkin cookie recipe, a mock plum sauce & an egg roll sauce (I want to test out both), and we just had baked fries (posted on the forum somewhere lately) with a homemade mayo-lime-cilantro dip. We only used salt to season. The fries didn't crisp up, and I didn't expect them to, but they weren't fully soggy either. They were extremely sweet.
My pumpkin has been in the freezer for 2 weeks already, but I have lots of buttercup squash. I have 53 bags now in the freezer (some squash had pockmarks from frost, no storage was possible), and 11 more big ones to do up. Then, we have all the seeds from all of that to do. I did a little, but there are much more to clean up.
I just remembered that I have two pumpkin soup recipes. One has tomatoes, the other doesn't.
Of course, pumpkin pie & pudding is pretty popular here. After all, that's one of the perks of having thick cream at your disposal. 😋
@hedgehog girl recently got a pumpkin latte recipe from a friend. It is really good. We liked it better with pumpkin than with squash, but boy it is tasty!
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Some folks asked me to come back the day after Thanksgiving, but I am already carrying home all I can.... looks like my pumpkin score will be around 50! All were planning to throw them away.
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The Jarrahdale are my favorite :-). Happy trash picking!!!
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Wow, 50 free! Free is good. I am glad that you are saving them from being wasted. I really hate waste.
At least they will keep for a time. I had approx. 60 squash that I couldn't store...I keep saying that, I know. That was a lot of work to do them up all within a few days, but now, we have more food for the winter and it feels good! My hands & feet strongly disagree, but such is life.
Preparing is good, free food is good, wasting good food is not an option. We will use what we can & share with others in need as we can.
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Just a reminder... I think pumpkin and chocolate are a heavenly combination. Pumpkin and chocolate chip muffins... I have a whole collection of recipes. ‘Tis the season!
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In the mountains where I grew up, people would seed and slice pumpkins, then dry them over the wood stove.... good stuff!
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Yes, indeed!
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YESSSSS!
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Those all sound delicious. I think that's a great idea. Just be careful, some people bleach their pumpkins to make them last longer.
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How odd!
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@karenjanicki our local news did a story asking folks not to bleach their pumpkins this year as javelinas eat them and it will make them very sick. They also gave places you could donate the pumpkins to if you didn’t bleach them such as animal rescues and the zoo.
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One of the neighbors I spoke with the other day about pumpkins stopped me today and gave me some freshly dug turmeric - I'm thinking turkey and pumpkin curry!
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@judsoncarroll4 Wow! These are such good ideas! Rather than potatoes in cooking roast beef, add pumpkin, and carrots, and onions! Yummy
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Tonight I had a cheese calzone with marinara and a pumpkin mash.... roasted pumpkin scraped out of the shell, with butter, sour cream, garlic, chives, salt and pepper. SO GOOD!!!!!!
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That is a wonderful idea! I wish we had something like this in our area.
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