Tammy's Recipes

yum and ???
Submitted by Anonymous
So on a day like this.....is your house a disaster or did you do your chores before you started on the pumkins? What does a typical day look like housework wise for you?
mama at mamacelebrate.blogspot.com

Canning Pumpkin Cubes
Submitted by Anonymous
The reason canning pureed pumpkin is not recommended is that it's low-acid, and it's a thick enough consistency that heat won't carry through the jar well to the center. You can, however, can cubed pumpkin, and then just drain and mash when you want it, which takes less than 30 seconds. One quart jar of cubed pumpkin gives me enough when pureed to make one deep-dish 9" pie. Here's a link to directions on canning cubed pumpkin.

Submitted by Anonymous
I've done a bit of canning here and there (had a almost-bad mishap with a pressure cooker ... i'm a water-bath gal now!) ... mostly just jams, but I'm wanting to do more, as we're able to. I was just wondering, how come you're not supposed to can pumpkin? I wonder what people who canned did before there was a pressure cooker?

How long?
Submitted by Martha Artyomenko
How long have you been doing this?
I guess I am wondering how many years it has been and no one has died, although I guess it just takes one jar. But the reason I read was that the time amount for canning was not long enough to get to the center of a dense puree. So, what if you pressure canned it for longer than normal?

I have not very much freezer space, but I found if I did them in qt bags, in 2 c. amounts and laid them very flat, I can fit alot in a small space. We will see. I still have 7 pumpins.

3 hours?
Submitted by Kathleen B.
You have to process it for THREE HOURS?! Oh my goodness! That's a long time. Mom and did apple butter and sauce yesterday (I did a tutorial on my blog) and we only had to process that for 10 minutes. It seems like the blink of an eye compared to that ;).

Kathleen

Canning pumpkin
Submitted by Tammy
Mamacelebrate -- I'll answer in a blog post. :) Good questions! ;)

Anonymous, yes -- I have read that the heat doesn't transfer well enough through the pumpkin puree. I have read that it makes a difference if you pack your jars cold vs. hot, and I would imagine that the amount of time you boil it would make a difference, as well. Sometime I should take a jar out of my canner and temp the inside after a few hours, for curiousity's sake. :)

But, even if the heat did transfer well enough, I was thinking that the USDA says to use a pressure canner (not a boiling water bath) for low-acid foods like green beans or pumpkin. So, if I remember right, no puree at all, only cubes, canned in a pressure canner.

Martha, well, I am using canning methods from my mom/her mom/her mom/etc. I would be interested in statistics about home canned foods, but I don't really know of any... realistically, there are risks of eating almost any foods -- remember the e coli from fresh spinach, or the contaminated peanut butter?!

Kathleen, yes! Apples are high-acid (at least I think they're considered that!) and have a shorter processing time. My pumpkin actually took a lot longer than 3 hours to cook... it took about 4 or 5 hours to come to a good boil (I purposely didn't turn the heat up all the way, so it would have time to get nice and hot all the way through) and then I timed it for 3 more hours!

Canning pumpkin
Submitted by Martha Artyomenko
Personally, I think they probably error on the side of caution because the cases of botulism are pretty bad. But, my MIL cans stuff all the time in ways i know is not safe at all and yet, they eat it and are fine, but I wonder if I would eat it.....I could get very sick! You know, how each family gets used to their own bacteria....

I would think with that long of cooking you have eliminated the risk! I may try canning some, but that is a long time to have a boiling pot on your stove!

Submitted by TaftMommy
I wish I had more freezer space! But I only did three pumpkins, so it wasn't *that* much to freeze. Plus I'm using it a lot. :D I have never canned with a pressure canner...they kind of scare me.

I keep mine in the freezer
Submitted by Anonymous
I only had two pie pumpkins to use. I did a photo-documentary on my side bar as to how I make pumpkin puree. I actually have more space in my freezer than I do on my shelves, so I freeze it. Plus, I never use more than 1 cup at a time. I am hoping to get more pumpkins because this was fun!!

Stephanie
www.homeschoolblogger.com/inspired

Kinds of Pumpkins...
Submitted by cari
My mom has always done lots of canning, but we live a long ways away from her, so I have never been brave enough to try it myself. I decided next spring I am taking the plunge, putting in a much bigger garden, and taking up canning. One thing my mom has never canned is pumpkin. Is there a kind (or size) that you prefer for canning over another?

Pumpkin varieties
Submitted by Tammy
Hi, Cari! :) The best kind of pumpkin for baking/cooking is called "pie" or "sugar" pumpkins. Other than that, I don't know! :)

Thank you!
Submitted by cari
I just love reading all the different things you have here at your site!

Thanks for the tips
Submitted by Anonymous
We are heading into "suburban homesteading" in a small way with our first garden next spring. We grew pumpkins by accident last year from carving them on the deck and the seeds falling thru! Thanks for the tips!

canning pumpkin
Submitted by Anonymous
I read your canning pumpkin post and thought I'd try it - I didn't get to carve up ours this year (delivered baby #4 on Halloween, instead) - so I had a few to 'try' it on.

It didn't go well at all. We cut the pumpkin in half, put the halves in a pan in the oven with water in the tray, cooked it until 'soft'... and when we pulled it out, the halves collapsed in on themselves. After trying to pull them apart, I started to work on removing the 'meat' from the shell, but it was like a huge network of stringy shtuff.

I'm guessing I did something wrong?

how old were your pumpkins?
Submitted by Anonymous
I'm guessing, but I bet those were pumpkins grown for carving, more so than eating. They really are more stringy. Get yourself some more "pie" pumpkins or use winter squashes (like acorn, sweet mama, butternut or my favorite....the blue hubbard) and try it again. I bet you'll have much better luck. Also, if it was a carving pumpkin, it may have not been as fresh as you'd have liked for it to be. The rind is not as thick so you can carve it easier, but it doesn't have the keeping power of the others listed. If you can find a Blue Hubbard.....and your husband will help you get into it, it is just wonderful. Most canned pumpkin at the stores is really made from the winter squashes, so you don't have to worry about how they'll taste to you. ((If anything, they taste better than true pumpkins in my opinion.)) We grew some bannana squashes one year and they weighed between 75 - 100 pounds each. Each squash had a small seed cavity and the rest was all meat. I was so tired of canning that year.

Good luck!
Debbie

On the poster above
Submitted by Martha Artyomenko
I do mine this way, it is sort of stringy, but blend it in the blender and it works great! I just did 2 pumpkins yesterday!

Stringy pumpkin
Submitted by Anonymous
I worked up three pumpkins on Saturday and made pumpkin butter. Two of mine were really stringy. I halved them, cleaned them then baked them in the oven for 2-3 hours until they were really soft. (Put them cut side down on a cookie sheet). After I peeled them, they fell apart while doing this and I drained them well then put in a bowl with a tiny bit of the liquid that cooked off. Then I used my stick blender (purchased at a thrift shop for $1) to blend it all, no strings!!

Pumpkin with strings
Submitted by Tammy
My pumpkin is usually a little bit stringy -- and like some other commenters suggested, you can put it in the blender, use a stick blender, or (for a quick fix) mash with a potato masher.

I used to do that, but then I stopped, and we didn't think it made any difference with our baked goods and such... it seemed like by the time the pumpkin was cooked into something (cookies, bread, pie, etc.) it was so soft that we didn't notice any strings.

But, if you want something exactly like what comes out of a can from the store, you should cook the pumpkin really well (i.e. not "just until tender", but maybe "until REALLY tender"!), drain it well (I do use a colander to drain my pumpkin if it seems watery, especially at the bottom of a big bowl when I'm working on it), and then puree it in the blender. :)

Tammy, I recycle our Fall pumpkins by baking them! I cut in 1/2, scoop out the seeds (clean and roast later), set the pumpkin halves flesh side up (sometimes need to cut a bit off of the skin side so that it'll stay flat) and bake @ 350 until tender. ALOT less water this way. I also make up puré and freeze in 2 cup amounts in qt baggies as my recipes use 2 cups. They take up little room.

One of the things I like to do with stringy pumpkin is throw it in homemade vegetable soup. I tried it once when I had some that I didn't know what to do with and was surprised how yummy it was. I made a pumpkin pie with the stringy pumpkin once and it had a really funny texture, but maybe I should try baking with them again.

I'm also one for freezing. I'll water bath can anything acidic (apples, tomatoes, jam), but I freeze the rest (corn, green beans, pumpkin, etc). I've never tried a pressure canner, but find that freezing works great for us. We do have a not quite full size upright freezer in the basement, but I still did it when we had just the top freezer of an apartment fridge.