Sunday, November 8, 2009

Pumpkin Puree for Katherine

My sweet newly-wedded cousin Katherine recently moved to England. She's living in a quaint little town called Cambridge - you may have heard of it. Her brilliant Husband is doing some Masters work over there. ANYWAY, she sent me an email the other day telling me that there is absolutely NO pumpkin puree to be had in Cambridge. Can you believe that? So, not only is she in a new place far far away from family and friends, she can't even cook familiar comforting holiday foods like pumpkin bread or pumpkin pie. So, if you are in a similar predicament, or if you are suffering from Libby's crop failure and subsequent shortage of canned pumpkin in Grocery stores, here is how you can make your own.

Head over to your grocery store and buy some cute little "pie pumpkins". They should be in the produce section with various other gourds and squashes. Cut them in half, scrape out the pulp and seeds, brush them with melted butter, sprinkle on some kosher salt, and roast them in the oven at 375 for 1 1/2 hours. They will look like the above picture.

Next, drain off any excess liquid, scoop out the soft flesh, and puree it in batches in a food processor or a blender until perfectly smooth. When your done you will have a big bowl full of pumpkin puree that is a beautiful orange autumn color. One pumpkin makes just over 1/2 cup puree.

And you can use it to make something like this, which is my pumpkin coffee cake recipe, that I will post tomorrow.

Love you Katherine.

4 comments:

Ben and Shara said...

yummy yummy. Pumpkin coffee cake?? yummy

Christy Dyer said...

Will you make some for us when you come?

Katherine Lewis said...

This is the moment I have been waiting for...THANK YOU! Thank you for the pictures, the details, the ideas. I have another confession....So, I tried making my own puree the other day, before I spoke with you, and I thought that the pulp was the part of the pumpkin that I was supposed to put in the mixer. I had no idea how it was done. So, I mixed the pulp with the unroasted pumpkin and made my husband some pumpkin bars. He told me that he liked them. I am sometimes grateful to a husband who lies. I got together with the other american wives over the holiday and we made dinner for our husbands. We used pumpkins. They started cleaning out the pumpkins, and I noticed that they weren't using the pulp. I pretended like I totally knew what they were doing. Then, I watched how it was really done and felt even more stupid. I finally confessed to both them and Verlan. It was hard for me to do. They were shocked at my cluelessness. Verlan was just as clueless as I was and didn't seem to mind. I should have just emailed you and not tell the world of my mistake. My point: thank you for teaching me.

Mary Martha said...

your amazing! My goodnes...