No Carriage for This Pumpkin

Debra bakes up some of her favorite fall treats.

As part of our fall/Halloween décor, we always display a few real pumpkins out on the front porch. This year we wound up with two giant pumpkins. (Purchased at the orchard where we go apple picking in September.) They proudly graced our front porch for part of September and all of October. But last weekend the time had come for them to serve a less decorative, but highly more delicious, purpose. We cut them up and turned them into yummy treats.

The first one we opened up was kind of 'icky' inside. Brown patches and the seeds were dark and a bit slimy. So, unfortunately, that one went into the trash. But the second one was perfect. My hubby did the honors of slicing it up, and then we both put our hands into the gooey insides and pulled out the seeds and stingy stuff.

The seeds were coated with butter and salt and put into the oven to roast. We're rebels and don't rinse the seeds like most recommend, as we like the flavor when some of the pumpkin insides are left on.

The large pieces of now seedless pumpkin were baked, which softens the skin so it can be removed more easily. This garnered us about four cups of pureed pumpkin and two more large freezer baggies filled with chunks of pumpkin flesh for another time.



The next day I gathered the rest of my ingredients and baked. First on the agenda was pumpkin cookies. These are not only a favorite of ours, but a favorite of Kyle's: the little boy featured in An Unexpected Blessing. Since we've been working on avoiding 'the whites' as part of a new health plan, I baked the cookies with whole wheat flour instead of white. I think they taste even yummier that way.

Then came pumpkin bread. This was a new recipe I found on line. Again, I substituted whole wheat flour for regular flour and used raw sugar instead of processed white. I'm not saying this makes the bread 'good for us', but we certainly feel a little less guilty eating it.

And, just in case our willpower totally broke down, I cut both recipes in half...only making a couple dozen cookies (an entire batch would be over four dozen) and one loaf of bread (a full recipe makes two). Of course I know there's plenty pumpkin left in the freezer for future batches!

So, although there were no godmothers in sight turning our pumpkins into carriages for a princess to go to the ball, we wound up with lots of yummy pumpkin treats. Which makes it a very happy ending!

Until next time,

Happy Reading!

Debra
www.debrastjohnromance.com

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