Fresh pumpkin instead of canned pumpkin

[marzyn]

Hello again from Venezuela! Could someone please tell me if it's possible to substitute fresh pumpkin pure for canned pumpkin? do I just boil and mash it, or is it better to bake it? I'd love to make a pumpkin pie, but can't get canned pumpkin here!!!!

[bbally]

Season it, boil it and strain it if you have a food mill or vitoria strainer. if not you can cube the stuff, boil it and mash it. After mashing it you have to come back to the low heat to reduce the water content. Watch it closely as it will scorch fast.

If you have the time, reduce it the second time over the bain marie!

[bbisque]

I cut the pumpkin into pieces and stuff as much as will fit into my pressure cooker with a little water, then cook for about ten minutes at pressure. When it's done, I use a big spoon to scoop the pumpkin flesh off of the skin and put it in my blender.
Once it's in the blender, I just add the other ingredients for the pumpkin pie and blend it all together. Then it's ready to pour into the crust.

[grendlesmoder]

Baking doesn't add less water, so you don't have to then cook it to remove the water, but it takes longer and i'm very impatient. Microwave would probably work quicker. Steaming, even without a pressure cooker is better than boiling because flavor is not lost into the boiling water (use a steamer basket in a pot, or even just lay largish pieces of pumpkin in a couple of inches of water, skin side down, the skin kind of protects against being soggy, and the pieces on top get only steam. Don't peel before, just let it cool a little and then very esaily scrape out the pulp from skin with a spoon. One thing i noticed after a few years of living away from the states where i had had all the convenience foods, canned, bottled, frozen and mixes etc, is that i had to meke things from scratch, and realized they were infinitely better. Now even when the shortcut stuff is available, i can;t eat it.
OF COURSE you can make a pumpkin pie without canned pumpkins - how did the early colonists make it anyway?

[grendlesmoder]

oops, i meant baking doesn;t add water, i don't know where i got the "less" - sorry

[bohica]

I go through the process every year and make my pies from the flesh of our garden grown pumpkins. I get comments about this stuff not being as "good" as the stuff from the can. I shake my head and just walk away. I use fresh cream, brown sugar, spices, etc......I don't use canned evaporated milk....I use cream. I don' think these people have ever eaten the fresh pumpkin meat and don't know what it shoul taste like. The canned stuff is always so compact and dry, no problem there though. Just people playing mind games you know.

[cjs]

"I get comments about this stuff not being as "good" as the stuff from the can."

Poor Ross, it's hard to edjucate us peasants...

It took me a long time to appreciate fresh pumpkin pies, because Libby's is what I was raised 'up' on!! I love Libbys, but to me tasting fresh is like having a different kind of pie...

[marzyn]

"how did the early colonists make it anyway"... GOOD question! I have thought about this many times, how did they cope indeed!! No kitchen toys! WOW!
Anyhow, THANKS for the help! I'll let you know which process worked better! (I just hope that local pumpikns are as good as American ones!)
Bearhugs to all!

[masonjar]

peel it steam it until tender then puree it in your food processor. That's how i do it for pumpkin pie everytime

[grendlesmoder]

"how did the early colonists make it anyway"... GOOD question! I have thought about this many times, how did they cope indeed!! No kitchen toys! WOW!

Marzyn, well, how they coped was not to make the complicated dishes we make, and probably like most people in the world, their everyday diet was probably mostly porridges and soups. As for the rest - when i first moved to rome, i had no kitchen toys (did have running water (cold only in the kitchen) and a small frige, and a small gas stove and oven without thermostat) and had to carry everything up 5 double height flights! - (beginning to sound like one of those walking five miles barefoot in the snow stories) - i made it all by hand. I actually got a kick out of it. I was a student, had the time, and got to enjoy the actual physical nature of cooking - mixing, kneading, etc. I, too, had never made pumpkin pie without the can, or even without the can's recipe! When, one by one, i started making the dishes i missed from scratch, wow, i could never go back. Pancakes are no harder to make from scratch than from a mix but taste so much better, and so on, and pumpkin will steam itself or bake itself, after all, and scraping it out is quite easy once its soft, and it mashes easily without a food processor. The taste is incomparable.
experiment with some different kinds of pumpkins - there's a kind that is dark green and bumpy, about as big as a large tea kettle, and it's a bright greenish yellow inside. It has the kind of pulp that is not stringy or watery, and the taste is exceptional. I use it to make many things, like gnocchi and savory turnovers, and it makes wonderful pumpkin pie.
oh, and finally, after a few years, i got a kitchen aid mixer in the states wired for european current, and carried it in my (wheel-less) suitcase!

[marzyn]

Grendlesmoder, Thanks for your comment, I really enjoyed reading it!
Even though I love kitchen toys, I trully enjoy doing things from scratch, and by hand, being a potter I love kneading (maybe that is one of the reasons i haven't bought a breadmaker yet! aside form the high price i'd have to pay here in my country!!), so when I said i didn't know how they coped, I was just using wacky Venezuelan black humor!
So you make pumpkin gnocchi, wow! must be awesome! I tried using yams instead of 'tatoes, but... very unsuccessful, almost embarrasing result. Would you care to share your recipe with a very curious teacher-potter-cook?
Marina
P.S: we only have one kind of pumpin here, quite watery, probably the kind you use for carving at Halloween, but i suppose it'll do!

[grendlesmoder]

Hi Marzyn,
glad to hear you enjoyed the comment - it's encouraging because i'm thinking to write a chatty cookbook and it's nice to know my chatting is enjoyable to read. I'll post the pumpkin gnocchi in the recipe forum, ok? It doesn;t make sense to do it in this thread.

try some squashes instead of pumpkin - they're all the same family - good hard yellow winter type squashes, not the summer ones like zucchine.

[marzyn]

Hi back Grend!!! Sorry didn't answer over the weekend, 't was a busy one, didn't even have time to cook, except for fish en papillote on Sunday, nothing very creative or worth talking about.
Of course I enjoyed reading your comment, you have a nice style, and a chatty cookbook should prove amusing. But the big question is, when do you find time to do so many things? Are you a practicing therapist?? With the current political scene in this country we would really benefit form your help!!!! (one reason for the busy weekend.)
Anyhow, let me know when the book is out, I am a big cookbook fan (or any book really!), I'll ask my daughter who lives in NY to get it for me, here would be a bit hard to get, an the price would probably be tripled!! We pay over 40% just in taxes, can you imagine? No wonder the cultural level of many here is SO low! Sorry, I promised NOT to speak about politics, food and food-related activities are part of MY therapy!
Be well my new friend, and I'll be on the lookout for the yummy gnocchi recipe!
M.

[grendlesmoder]

Hi Marzyn, I already posted it in the "recipes" forum.
i'll send a private message to answer all your questions
g