Wednesday, December 30, 2009

What's Cookin'?

Can you guess?! If you've been following along, you know the answer has to be more pumpkin!

About half of the pumpkin puree from the bigger of the two pumpkins did end up in the freezer for later use. Another four cups made their debut in the very yummy Pumpkin Curry Soup we enjoyed on Sunday afternoon.

We also enjoyed Tomato Bread (with both tomato and pumpkin in it) as part of our Christmas Eve Dinner. And another loaf just came out of the bread maker earlier this afternoon.

I even stuck my neck out and came up with my own pumpkin recipe which I'm calling Pumpkin Veggie Bake. If you add a pound of ground meat (cooked) and two or three cups of rotini pasta (cooked), you can also turn this side dish into a hearty main dish. We tried that version – using ground venison – and really liked it, too!

The second pumpkin started going the way of all flesh before I could tend to it. So, it got moved from the living room (where it had become part of the decor) to the front porch – which ended up acting the dual function of refrigerator!

Last night, I was able to salvage about half of the second pumpkin and bake it. About eight cups of little pumpkin cubes are playing the main role in a second big batch of Pumpkin Veggie Bake – with no meat this time.





Cutting the pumpkin into chunks this time, cut the cooking time to about one hour – half the time it took to cook the bigger half of the bigger pumpkin previously.





The remaining pumpkin chunks (now baked) will probably be made into puree and/or integrated into An Adaptation of Uruguayan Puchero. (Yes, that recipe is still pending.)

Classic Pumpkin Bread will also be in the works. My Dearest's co-workers enjoyed it, and I promised some to my co-workers, too. Fresh pumpkin puree tends to be quite a bit milder than its canned counterpart, so that even those who claim not to like pumpkin enjoyed this version of the popular sweet bread.

Carving pumpkins are very good-for-you, economical food. It's a real shame that so much gets wasted in our country every autumn...

Yes, we are thoroughly enjoying our pumpkin recipes. And we're very thankful for God's provision!

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