Early in October, a young friend gave me this amazing 36-pound pumpkin, and this lovely Hubbard squash. The teacup is there for scale; a teacup is usually sitting around somewhere nearby in my kitchen or dining room, and it makes a hand prop for photos.
My husband used a machete to cut the pumpkin into quarters, out on the wood chopping block. I baked two quarters at a time, in two 9x13 pans. I scraped the cooked squash away from the rind while my husband operated the Foley food mill, seen on the right. We sure trashed the kitchen!
The puree from the pumpkin nearly filled my big bread bowl. It was getting late and I was getting tired, so my husband carried it out to my car to stay cool overnight (the temperature was in the 30s). The next day I carried it back indoors in three smaller batches, and measured it into freezer boxes. Unless I lost count, I ended up with 36 cups of pumpkin puree from that one pumpkin. I foresee an ample supply of pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pie, and pumpkin cookies this winter.
I also baked the Hubbard squash, and my husband ran that through the food mill as well. It yielded about 9-10 cups of puree, which I will use just like pumpkin in assorted baked goods. We'll probably eat some of it as a side dish, thawed and heated in a kettle or in the oven.
More recently, that same friend gave me another Hubbard squash. This one weighs 27 pounds! I have stored it in our "above-ground root cellar" (something my husband rigged up in the garage) and plan to deal with it later. I believe I will dice some of this one and freeze it that way, rather than puree the entire vegetable.
I see the same teacup got into this photo as the first photo. It's one of my favorite teacups, so I'm not surprised.
Since we only planted potatoes and zucchini this summer, I am especially pleased to have received these gifts from a fellow gardener!
Oh, I bet some diced winter squash would have been just the thing to add to my crock pot roast last week. I'll keep it in mind for next time! Maybe with a bit less hot pepper, and more cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger.
Sound good to me!
Wow! I just cut up a big pumpkin last week. Got chunks of roasted pympkin in the freezer for recipes and toasted a bunch of seeds that my son used for lunch treats. !BBH
I forgot to do anything with the seeds! Oops.
!PIZZA
Pizza goes well with squash! LOL
Does a Hubbard squash taste different than any other squash?
Foley food mill-----so that is what that thing is called. I never thought to use it on the pumpkin that I cooked for the dogs. Someone gave it to me and whoever gave it to them had used some sort of pins to hold Halloween decorations on it, so it had holes in it.
My husband was busy so I put the pumpkin in a box and took it outside on the weed mat and dropped it several times, by doing this, I could pull it apart.
I see we both have a love for tea cups, my favorite cup has legs. I would show it to you but all of my tea cups are in a box somewhere because I have no place to properly show them.
I have grown several different varieties of winter squash over the years, and each one has its own flavor. Hubbard is not as sweet as some, but it has a thick, hearty texture. Delicata and sweet dumpling squashes are sweeter. Acorn squash is probably my least favorite; I find it rather tasteless. Butternut squash is good baked, especially with apples and spices. But those are just my opinions.
I had a good chuckle over how you made your pumpkin come apart. We do have to get creative now and then, that's for sure.
My mother loved tea cups, and had about 70 in her china hutch. When she died, my two sisters and my cousin and I divided them up amongst ourselves. Then I accumulated a few more over the years as gifts and from ebay. I have about 3 dozen now. I keep five or six handy in a cupboard for use, and the rest live on top of the kitchen cupboards. I swap them out now and then, so I don't use the same ones all the time.
I love butternut squash but I bake it with butter and brown sugar. We grow Seminole squash and cook them with apples, they are like small pumpkins.
I can not use my right hand to cut the pumpkin and like you said, I got creative.
My Mom is where I got most of my tea cups. When I am with my sister at a yard sale and I see a cup and saucer, I buy it and she always gives me grief about buying it, she says "what are you going to do with it" I say "I am going to put it in the box with the rest of them. Maybe one day someone in the family will want them.
@scribblingramma! @fiberfrau likes your content! so I just sent 1 BBH to your account on behalf of @fiberfrau. (4/20)
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$PIZZA slices delivered:
@fiberfrau(1/5) tipped @scribblingramma