pumpkins

I love pumpkins. 

The plant is pretty

they are fun to decorate with

and yummy to eat

I have always used the canned pumpkins for baking. It's what I grew up with and it's easy. This year our local farmer's market is selling little pie pumpkins that weigh about 3-4 pounds each and cost a dollar per pound. I figured I would give it a try and bought one. Here is what I did with it.

Wash the pumpkin and remove the stem.

Cut in half and remove seeds.

Lightly oil a cookie sheet, place the pumpkin halves face down, and bake at 350 degrees until fork tender.

Remove from oven and turn over to help the halves cool faster. Watch out for the steam. Once they are cool enough to handle get a large spoon and scoop out all the pulp.

I use an immersion blender to puree the pulp, but a food processor or even a potato masher will do the trick.

That one little 3 pound pumpkin made over 3 cups of puree. You can use it right away, put it in the fridge, or save it in the freezer for later. Today I turned about a cup of it into pumpkin muffins. 

Pumpkin Spice Muffins (adapted from this recipe)

1 cup All-purpose Flour

1/2 cup Sugar

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1-1/2 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Ground Ginger

1/2 teaspoon Nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon Salt

4 Tablespoons Butter, melted

1 cup (heaping) Pumpkin Puree

1/2 cup Milk

1 whole Egg

1-1/2 teaspoon Vanilla

Topping:

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 12 muffin tins. I used liners and I do not recommend it. They stuck.

Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and salt. Add butter. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. (I never do a separate bowl and it works fine. Less dishes that way) Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a greased muffin pan—batter hardly ever fills all twelve unless you keep it down to 1/2 full. Sprinkle with remaining cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mixture over the top of each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool.

Check back tomorrow to see what I'm doing with the seeds :)