Orange Goo and Big Turkeys
October 18th, 2009I spent a long over due day in the kitchen yesterday. I’ve had three pumpkins from the mutant pumpkin plant sitting there waiting on me to decide what I was going to do with them for quite a while. So many of the bloggers I follow have been posting about roasting their pumpkins, freezing pumpkin meat and making pumpkin pies, that I finally decided yesterday was the day.
I have a confession. In the past, I’ve roasted the pumpkin seeds and either made a Jack-O-Lantern out of the pumpkin, or fed the pumpkin meat to my chickens. I’ve never roasted a pumpkin and I’ve never eaten any of the meat. Well, this year I feel I more than redeemed myself. I roasted the two smaller pumpkins and not one ounce of them went to waste.
I froze 10 quart bags of pumpkin meat and I roasted most of the seeds. Roasting pumpkin seeds is easy - separating the seeds from the pumpkin goo is not. Well, it’s really not that it’s difficult. It’s a little time consuming. I find putting the goo and seeds in a large bowl of water and then squishing all the goo between my fingers is the best method. The seeds separate, for the most part, and float to the top of the water. Once I get the seeds separated, I wash them off and remove any lingering pumpkin goo, and then let them dry on a paper towel. Once dry, I put them in a bowl, drizzle a little olive oil over them, dump on some salt, and mix it all together. Then I spread them on a covered baking pan.
I bake them at 250 for about an hour, turning them every 15 minutes or so. And when they turn golden brown, they are ready to eat. I keep them in an airtight container. I think they’ll last a couple of weeks or so like that, but they don’t usually make it that long around here.
And after the pumpkin meat was frozen and the seeds were roasted? I fed everything that was leftover to the chickens. They love anything pumpkin. And I was happy to have no waste what-so-ever.
Angie’s post motivated me to actually make a pumpkin pie with some of that pumpkin meat. That may not seem significant to you, but I’ve never cared for pumpkin pie, and I saw taking the time to make one from scratch the last ditch effort to determine if it was worth allowing these things to grow in my garden.
Pies need pie crusts, so I made four of them, and froze all but one. When I roll out my pie crust, I lay the dough on a sheet of wax paper, and place another sheet over top of it. It rolls out without sticking to the rolling pin, and when I’m finished I can either peel off the top sheet of wax paper and then use the second sheet to help put the crust in the pie pan, or I can leave both sheets on and freeze the crust that way. For the crusts I freeze, I fold the crust in half (the wax paper keeps the dough from sticking to itself), and then in half again. Like this:
Then I put them in a gallon freezer bag, and call it a day.
Well, not quite a day. I still had a pumpkin pie to make. So I mixed all the orange goo with some milk, evaporated milk, and spices and poured it into my shell.
Then I stuck it in the oven and forgot to set my timer. Argh. I’m not sure how long the pie had been baking when I finally realized I missed that little step. So I ended up poking it with a knife to test for doneness every 10 minutes or so. As a result, the finished pie was full of knife stabs and not very pretty. But do you know what? It tastes delicious! I was really pleasantly surprised that I like that pumpkin pie. Which is really good, seeing as I have a freezer full of pumpkin goo. My dad sent me a Cream Cheese Pumpkin Roll that I’m pretty excited to try.
Along with spending the day with pumpkins, I also spent a lot of time with a turkey. A 20 pound turkey, to be exact. Bernie found this fella on sale at the grocery store. Bernie’s quite the bargain shopper these days. At any rate, I roasted the turkey and we had a little of it for supper last night. I froze many bags of turkey - some for us and some to use in the home made dog food. After all the turkey was picked and frozen, I threw the carcass in a stock pot, added some seasonings and chopped onions, carrots, and celery, covered the whole thing with water and let it cook for about 3 hours. After straining, I ended up with six quarts of turkey stock in the freezer.
It was a long day in the kitchen yesterday. But as cold and rainy as it was outside, I was very happy to be there. We had the wood burner cranking out heat and the house smelled of pumpkin pie and roasted turkey.
And that huge mutant pumpkin? I’ve about decided to scoop out the seeds to roast and save a few for next year’s garden. And then I think I’ll donate the pumpkin itself to our neighbor kid so he can have the biggest Jack-O-Lantern in this neck of the woods.
So what have you been doing in your kitchen? Is your freezer full of good food? Have any pumpkin recipes you’d care to share?
Tags: pumpkins, turkey, turkey stock
October 18th, 2009 at 10:05 am
hallo Penny, ich las gerade deinen blog, ich finde es toll was du alles aus dem kürbis gemacht hast. mit den kernen kann man auch sein brot verfeinern ich liebe es ein kürbiskernbrot, und ich liebe davon suppe zu essen und es sauer einlegen als beilage zum abendbrot schmeckt gut. ich weiss was das für arbeit macht die kerne zu säubern, aber man freut sich auch wenn die arbeit gemacht und man es geniessen kann. Penny ich bewundere dich was du so alles auf die beine und was du so auf deinem hof so alles arbeitest. penny ich wünsche dir noch und deinen Mann einen tolle restsonntag wir haben euch lieb deine elinor
October 18th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Yay you! I am so glad you like the pumpkin pie. You should try some pumpkin potato soup with bacon!
October 18th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
You certainly had a busy day in the kitchen. I’ve never roasted a pumpkin or used the meat to make pies. Might be something to try one day.
October 18th, 2009 at 6:35 pm
Wow, Mrs. Betty Crocker!! You have been a busy lady. I will have to check your dog food recipe so I can use our leftover turkey after Thanksgiving. Glad you like pumpkin pie-I do, too. I do have a recipe for a bisquick pumpkin pie that makes its own crust-easy, peasy. I will email it to you soon. I don’t have pumpkin in my freezer yet this year, but lots of zucchini. Take care.
October 18th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
Wow! You have been a busy lady in the kitchen. I bet your place smelled SO yummy when you were doing all that. I am so happy that you tried a pumpkin pie. I am even Happier that you liked it!!!! And isnt that a great feeling when you can use every bit of that pumpkin with no waste at all?
Tell me tho, did you have whipped cream on your pumpkin pie?
October 19th, 2009 at 7:27 am
Hallo Elinor, genoss ich eine Tag in der Küche arbeiten und das ist das erste Mal, dass ich mit Kürbis gekocht. Ich in der Regel gar nicht wie der Geschmack von Kürbis. Aber vielleicht meinen Geschmack ändern sich, als ich älter werden. Ich hoffe, dass Sie und Uli gut geht. Bist du in Pfalzfeld für ein paar Tage? Ich hoffe, Sie entspannt und glücklich wieder. Ich schicke Dir viel Liebe.
October 19th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Wow, my hat’s off to you, you busy lady you!! I can see you were definitely in the “waste not” mood. I made some strawberry jam on Saturday, which actually turned out pretty darned good for my first attempt at canning anything!
Encourages me to try more next season.
October 19th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Angie - I’m still a little nervous about all-things-pumpkin. But I gotta tell ya, I think I might could eat some pumpkin potato soup with bacon. I mean, it’s got bacon, right? What’s not good with bacon!!!
SVB - I had never baked a pumpkin either. Never thought I’d want to. But I gotta tell ya, fresh baked pumpkin seems to be a little tastier than what I’ve eaten before. And it’s very much like baking a squash. Only bigger. And oranger. Roasted pumpkin seeds is one of my favorites. I’ve made those for many years and I really love them. It feels good to eat more than just the seeds now!
Cotton Lady - if you use pre-cooked chicken/turkey/ground meat in your dog food recipe, just skip the part about pressure cooking. I use 5/6 cups cooked meat. 3 cups brown rice, and a bag of mixed veggies. Add 7 1/2 cups water, bring to a boil, cover, and reduce heat to a simmer for 50 minutes. My dogs especially love it if I use drippings/broth for all or part of the water. Let me know what yours think of it!
Frugalmom - No, I didn’t have whipped cream on the pumpkin pie. Should I have? It was really good though! I’m not sure I would say it’s my favorite dessert, but I was pretty tickled I could actually eat it and enjoyed it.
Oz Girl - Woo hoo! You canned! Welcome to the addiction…… I think you are really gonna LOVE canning. Just the satisfaction of knowing YOU put up your own food is wonderful. And then the fact that you can enjoy the taste of a season for many, many months….. well…. I think you’re going to like this. Congrats!
October 20th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Find a recipe for pumpkin bread. Fresh out of the oven with butter it is so good. Add a little more pumpkin than the recipe calls for and you get a pudding in the middle cake. Again, oh so good.
October 20th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Woo Hoo! Quite the haul for just 3 pumpkins! It’s funny, you call it pumpkin goo and we call it pumpkin guts. It has a funny odor and it’s slimy, so it became ‘guts’. Pumpkin seeds are the main reason we buy jack-o-lantern pumpkins. I buy the sugar pie pumpkins to make pie.
October 21st, 2009 at 1:20 am
Wait…what on earth is pumpkin MEAT??? I’ve never heard of that. I’ll be at Thanksgiving this year asking “Is this a vegetarian pumpkin pie?” Of course then someone in my family will correct me and say ‘It ain’t pumpkin, it’s punkin!” Ahhhh the countdown is on.
October 21st, 2009 at 8:09 am
Kitaye - I’ve got many pumpkin recipes people have sent me in an effort to convince me I really do like pumpkins. I bet there’s a pumpkin bread recipe in there somewhere. I’ve got lots of pumpkin meat in the freezer, and I hope to try most, if not all, of those recipes!
CeeCee - I love the pumpkin seeds too. In the past that was all I ever ate from the pumpkin. And I can totally see why you’d call it pumpkin guts!
Nicole - you are too funny. The meat is the ….. well… the meat of the pumpkin. The orange stuff you make pies and such out of. And the only punkin around here is Bernie!
October 21st, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Penny, Tex loves the seeds roasted too. My friend Missy Budd came by yesterday with a big slice of Pumpkin cheese cake, all I can say is , It was gone in a few seconds it was so good.