A couple of weeks before Halloween, I bought two large pumpkins for the girls to decorate. I'm too nervous to carve them, so I let them color them... I figured we'd roast the seeds, make some pumpkin chip cookies (we have a great recipe from The Kids' Table where the girls take cooking classes), and bake a Thanksgiving pie with them when Halloween had passed. A few days before Halloween, however, in Bumble's words I "spilled" Yaya's pumpkin. Unbeknownst to me it had begun to rot. When I realized it, I picked it up to throw it away, lost my grip, and it went SPLAT all over the living room. I wasn't terribly worried about losing one pumpkin because I had gotten them dirt cheap at the fruit store. Now, I'm thrilled it spilled because I am overwhelmed with pumpkin. Just after Halloween I cut up Bumble's pumpkin. It took over two hours to do it! I pureed part of it and used the puree to make 3 batches of pumpkin chip cookies, and one large pot of Mexican pumpkin soup (some of which is still in the freezer). Plus, I still have about 2 cups of puree and a medium container of pumpkin cubes to use, and by the way, I thought I would run out of pumpkin before getting to the Thanksgiving pie, so I bought one more small pie pumpkin. Oh yeah, and Yaya took a field trip to a farm for school and came back with a souvenir pumpkin!
The girls and Daddy are already sick of the pumpkin chip cookies and the leftover soup, so I've been trying to think of ways to use the rest of the pumpkins. I did a search, and I am so thankful for the internet! I never knew there were so many ways to cook with pumpkin. And some of them don't use the traditional pumpkin spices (I hate cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, etc), and some of them are great for fasting periods.
So, here are some of the ideas I'm planning to try over the next few weeks:
pumpkin rigatoni
coconut pumpkin soup
pumpkin bean soup
pumpkin chili (I was thinking of ditching the meat & cheese and substituting veggie broth to use this one soon)
pumpkin brownies
pumpkin stew
pumpkin and peanut curry
My mother tried a recipe (and I sampled the results) for chocolate cupcakes in which you use chocolate cake mix and a can of pumpkin. That's all. They were fantastic and not crumbly. I think if you type in "pumpkin substitute" you find a lot of "lite" recipes that use pumpkin in them. It's one way to get rid of some of it without things all tasting like pumpkin.
ReplyDeleteThat's fabulous! I don't have cake mix right now, but I have brownie mix, so I think I'll try that instead.
ReplyDeleteFYI, the rigatoni recipe failed in my oh so capable hands. I think it still has potential, but mine was mushy.
I found some more recipes (getting desperate for variations) that involve canned pumpkin (not pie filling). One that I'm going to try next uses spice cake mix (it's fasting, I checked) and 1 can of pumpkin. You frost it with maple frosting (I'm planning on using vanilla - also fasting - and adding a little maple flavoring). We'll see how bad it is. (c; There's also a pumpkin pie that consists of 1 package of instant vanilla pudding mix and 1 can of pumpkin. Apparently it sets up like a regular pumpkin pie. I'll let you know...
ReplyDelete(the word verification is "clownha", how funny!)