Pumpkins

Some pumpkins from our garden.  We are going to roast the seeds for granola bars and roast the pumpkins, puree them to bake pumpkin bread.

First step, scrub the outside of the pumpkins.

Next, cut the pumpkin in half and use a spoon to scrape out the fibers and seeds.

\Wash the seeds and set aside. 

Then take the pumpkin halves and cut them into smaller pieces. Fill a pan with water just to cover the bottom of the pan then lay your pieces in skin up.   Cover your pan with foil and roast in the oven at 325 degrees until tender. Mine took about 45 minutes.

Once tender take them out and remove the skin (best to do this while they are still hot).

I then put ours in a food processor, but you could do this step in a blender, and puree until smooth

.

For the pumpkin seeds, preheat oven to 400 degrees.  In a pan, add the seeds to the water, about 4 cups of water to every cup of seeds.  You could add salt to yours I chose not to since these will be added to my granola bars recipe found at  http://theischysfishys.blogspot.com/2011/07/few-favorite-finds.html .  Bring to a boil then let simmer for about 10 minutes.  Remove from heat and drain.  Spread some olive oil on your cookie sheet and spread your seeds onto the pan.  When browned to your liking remove from oven and enjoy.

Our two pumpkins made 9 cups of puree and two cups of seeds.

For pumpkin bread I use a recipe from Allrecipes.com submitted by Cheryl Riccioli.  It makes three loaves.

Ingredients:

3 cups canned pumpkin puree

1-1/2 cup vegetable oil or coconut oil

4 cups white sugar

6 eggs

4-3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1-1/2 tsp baking powder

1-1/2 tsp baking soda

1-1/2 tsp salt

1-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1-1/2 tsp nutmeg

1-1/2 tsp ground cloves (I leave this out)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease pans.

2. In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, and eggs.  Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves; stir the pumpkin mixture until well blended.  Divide that battter evenly between the prepared pans.

3. Bake in preheated oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.  The top of the loaf should spring back when lightly pressed.

I like to spread cream cheese on top. Yum!  But you might want to try peanut butter on it too.