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Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Fastest Way to Preserve Pumpkin for Baking




I have shown you several posts in the past on how to use pumpkin by drying it and making it into a flour. Click here for that.

I have shown you how to dry the seeds for later snacking. 
See here for that.

I haven't shown you the fastest and easiest way to use regular pumpkin without making flour or using the seeds. 

When I was about 14, I made my first pumpkin pie from scratch. I boiled down chunks of pumpkin and then scraped the meat off the peel which took quite some time. It also made the pumpkin rather "wet" with water which added some moisture to whatever I was making and also made the pumpkin lose some flavor and nutrition in the boiling process. 
 
 Since then, I have learned a thing or two and am constantly revisiting how I do things trying to make them quicker and quicker.

This year, I came up with an even better way to get things done in a quick way. I dried one of the pumpkins to make into pumpkin flour but the other pumpkin, I wanted to save for pie but knew with the little holes from the potato head decoration, that they wouldn't last. So, with that, I came up with a new idea. 
 

In the past, I have frozen the pumpkin only after it has been baked or boiled. I would put it into bags and use it that way. 

This year, I cut the peel off, pulled out the seeds and shredded it like you would zucchini. I froze it shredded in quart sized bags and you treat it just as you would the zucchini. You can substitute it for zucchini in bread recipes. (See here for that recipe.) Also, you can steam it with just a bit of water and mash it and use it for your pumpkin pie. 

I used some the other day in my carrot/curry soup as I didn't have squash frozen or cooked and it worked great. I just put it all in the blender and heated it. I didn't boil it down or anything.

I guarantee you that I will NEVER boil down pumpkin again! This is heaven sent!

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