I ♥ Pumpkins

Just in case you have ever wondered if you can go from this

to this

to this,

The answer is YES!

I’ve been told many times that you can’t use a jack-o-lantern pumpkin for eating. But I am here to tell you, people, that I do it every year. We always carve our pumpkins the day before Halloween so that they will still be fresh when the festivities are over. (We learned the hard way the first year or two that we lived here that in Idaho you may be able to carve them a week before, but here that just gives you a good opportunity to study mold growth up close and personal.) The morning after Halloween I cut them all up into big pieces and cook them. This time I tried 3 ways—big pots on the stove with a quart or so of water in them, crockpots, and in the oven. The pots on the stove cooked the pumpkin the fastest by far.

Once the pieces had cooled I sliced the skin off them, drained as much of the liquid off as I could in a colander, and then smashed them to bits with a potato masher. (Actually Ann smashed most of them, which I greatly appreciate.) I put the smashed pumpkin (from this point forward referred to as “pumpkin puree”) into ziploc freezer bags, 2 cups in each bag. I now have a freezer full of pumpkin puree, made from something that I could just as easily have thrown into the compost pile. If that’s not provident living, I don’t know what it! Too bad man cannot live on pumpkin alone…

The last bit of the puree I quickly made into our favorite pumpkin muffins. Cindy Lynn vows that she had a new recipe that is better than this one, but until I can taste carbs again (10 days) I’m sticking with the tried, true, and delicious. The first batch were gobbled up by visiting friends, my kids, and a troup of girl scouts. So the next day I stole one of the neighbor’s uncarved pumpkins and made a new batch of puree and a new batch of muffins. The neighbor wasn’t sure her kids would like them but they were a hit in both houses.

Hooray for eating those pumpkins!

Made from your Jack-o-Lantern Pumpkin Muffins

1 3/4 c flour
1 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. ginger
1/4 t. ground cloves
2 eggs
1 c pumpkin puree
1/2 c butter (softened)
1 c chocolate chips

Mix dry ingredients together in big bowl. Mix wet ingredients (eggs, pumpkin, softened butter) in another. Then combine. (Since this recipe doesn’t use baking powder, you don’t have to worry about mixing it too much.) If you are going to use chocolate chips, mix them with a few tablespoons of flour to coat them before adding them to the batter. This will keep them from sinking to the bottom!

Bake at 350 until a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean. (I usually start checking at 12 minutes for mini muffins and 18 minutes for full sized muffins.)

[Sometimes I throw in a little more puree. I usually bake a double batch and either give away some or freeze them. Then I use 1 stick of butter and 1/2 c. canola oil or margarine. I rarely add the chocolate chips.]

Enjoy!

PS—For my pies this year I’ll be using puree from some smaller pumpkins which are probably meant for pie making. But I have used jack o lanterns for pies before and thought they turned out just fine.