The first year in this house, we grew pumpkins in our garden. They took up way more room than we anticipated but were the coolest thing we’d ever grown to date. In my mind, if you grow your own pumpkins, you can’t just carve them and toss them. You have to eat them too. My favorite site for fresh anything recipes is Pick Your Own. Once you’ve tasted the difference fresh pumpkin makes, there’s no going back.
The downside? It’s a ton of work. In the past, we’ve cooked the pumpkin, scraped out the flesh, pureed and strained it in batches, and frozen it in 1 cup portions ready to use in recipes. I’m always up way late waiting for the excess water to drain out of the pumpkin so I can strain the next batch.
Due to squash bug invasions, we haven’t been able to grow our own pumpkins for a couple years but we still enjoy fresh pumpkin. We found honkin’ pumpkins at Walmart this year for under $10. Having 3 new kids who had never experienced Halloween, we figured pumpkin carving was a must-have “first.”
Then Sandy came and we stuck them under our herb garden for safe keeping. Then we forgot about them. Halloween came and went. No pumpkin carving. We looked at them a couple times in November and talked about carving them but never got around to it.
The other day, I realized they were rotting. Something had to be done, and I couldn’t let all that delish pumpkin go to waste. I also didn’t have the time or energy to cook and puree over 15 pounds of pumpkin.
Enter the quick and easy method…I hope.
I had Kayla cut the pumpkin into 2″ cubes and slice off the rind. Then I simply bagged the cubes into our nifty FoodSaver Bags and popped them into the freezer. The plan is to stick a bag of frozen pumpkin cubes into a crock pot full of water to cook the next time I want to bake with pumpkin. Then I puree what I need on the spot. That way I preserve the pumpkin but delay the work.
So what do you think? Will it work?