The End of Pumpkins?

Christmas has come and gone. Does that mean the season of pumpkins has ended? For many people, yes. For me, no. *grinning happily*

Every year between October and November, I have a ritual of roasting sugar pumpkins to make puree to last me through the year. I LOVE pumpkin and why should I be forced to live without pumpkin for about 3/4 of a whole year? Being the food snob I am, I do not do canned pumpkins. It does taste significantly different. I was thrilled to learn that doing the pumpkin pie from scratch does run in my family. My aunt roasted pumpkin puree for the Thanksgiving feast's pumpkin pie.

Making pumpkin puree is really easy:

1. Cut the pumpkin into half.
2. Take out the seeds.
3. Scrape the stringy parts out. Some people use forks to accomplish this. I discovered by accident that an avocado slicer does the trick!
   
4. Place the pumpkins face down in a glass baking pan in a 350-degree oven.
5. Bake for 1.5 hours or so until the pumpkin is soft (poke the outside).
6. Let cool
7. Spoon out the squash part and place in a blender to puree!
   

There was a shortage of pumpkins this year: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pumpkin18-2009nov18,0,5196858.story. This alerted me because I do not want to face next year with less pumpkins to roast. I decided to go on a roasting marathon and have accumulated about 21 cups of puree that are sitting in my freezer. I am running out of freezer space and containers! I think 21 cups will last me for a good while.

Trader's Joe's sugar pumpkins ran out quickly. I only managed to get 17 cups of puree. Whole Foods had pumpkins available well into December but they were of a different variety. They were slightly bigger. The taste was different. The color more brownish than the bright orange splashed all over my freezer. Those four cups from Whole Foods will be the first to go.

So... what the heck do I do with all the pumpkin puree?! When the general public think of pumpkin, they think of pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread/ muffins... the sky's really the limit when it comes to pumpkin! Some of my favorites:

• Pumpkin smoothie
• Pumpkin lentil soup
• Turkey-pumpkin chili
• Pumpkin ravioli
• Pumpkin-potato soup
• Pumpkin oatmeal (my favorite breakfast)
• Pumpkin waffles/pancakes

I came across some interesting recipes that I would love to try. I am tempted to use up my 21 cups to cook pumpkin 21 different ways. Now that would make a grand tale! At the same time, I do enjoy my comfort food (familiar food like the pumpkin oatmeal) so I will probably need to sleep on it! My pumpkin carriage is beckoning...