Cooking And Freezing Fresh Sugar Pumpkins

I like to bake and cook with pumpkin throughout the year. Like many other squash varieties pumpkin is versatile when baking and cooking. For most of us pumpkin is available on the shelves of our local grocery stores all year long and the canned version tastes great. But I can’t bring myself to throw away those perfectly good little pumpkins we decorate with during the Autumn months. I don’t like to throw away food and this method of cooking these little pumpkins only takes and hour. The hardest part is cutting them up.

Start by cutting your pumpkins in half from top to bottom. (I normally cut the stem off before I half them but my husband cut these two up for me:) Make sure you scrape out all the seeds and gooey pulp. 

• Keep your seeds and roast them.(I have a previous blog for sweet and spice pumpkin seeds)

You can leave the pieces  of pumpkin halved or cut them into quarters. I quartered mine to fit the pieces into my baking dishes easier. However you choose to do it they will cook just fine and for the same amount of time.

I add water to the bottom of the baking dishes to steam the squash and prevent it from drying out during the cooking process. Cover the dishes with aluminum foil and pop them into the oven.

When the squash is thoroughly cooked the skin can be easily pierced with a knife.

Once cooled the skin easily separates from the flesh. (Often the skin just lifts off:)

You can mash or puree your squash however you choose. (I just use a hand masher for easy clean up).

After the pumpkin is mashed place it in a strainer over a bowl for at least and hour. This step is necessary. Technically the squash has been steamed and it will have retained a lot of water and it will freeze better if most of the extra liquid is strained out.

I bag the pumpkin in plastic sandwich bags, two cups per bag. Portioned out in baggies makes it much easier for future use. This particular batch yielded five cups in total. 

• Look at all those seeds from those two little pumpkins⇑ Roast and enjoy them!

Thank you for stopping by! Reach out if you have any questions:)

Roni♥