From field to table

or from pumpkin to bread.

I took my girls, and the neighbor girl to the orchard today to pick apples and pumpkins. We ended up with a bushel of apples, 4 large carving pumpkins, 4 small pie pumpkins, caramel apples and donuts for all. Not bad for $30.

I figured I would use this blog to show our journey from field to table.

I started with 4 tiny pie pumpkins. These are actually the smallest pie pumpkins I have ever seen. They are not that much bigger than the decorative ones. Still, for $0.50 each, they will work.
I took them all and cut them in half
This was the worst part because honestly, I hate the smell of raw pumpkin. It seriously grosses me out. I scraped all the inside guts out, leaving only the shells.But I save the seeds. Thrown in the oven for an hour or so with a little olive oil and some salt and you have a fairly healthy snack. My kids love them.


I then cut the cleaned out shells into pieces so that they will all fit in my roasting pan, in this case a rectangular casserole dish with about an inch of water in the bottom.

I put them in a 400 degree oven to roast for about an hour. The skins at that point come off really easily. I peel the pieces and cut the meat of the pumpkin into chunks.
I love this because they are such a pretty color. I now take my handheld mixer and puree the pumpkin chunks. A food processor would probably be faster and easier, but I don't have one, so I use what I have.Now we are ready to cook. I take 1 cup, and portion the rest into ziplock baggies, 1 cup per baggie. In total I have about 6 cups of pureed pumpkin which is a lot more than I thought I would end up with.

Onto the bread making.

Preheat the oven to 350.

1 cup pureed pumpkin
1 3/4 cup flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup vegetable oil
3/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice
1/4 cup water

Mix all the dry stuff in one bowl. Mix all the wet stuff in another bowl. Then mix them together. Easy.
Grease and flour a loaf pan. Dump the batter in. Bake it for an hour or until it is done in the middle.
You end up with this
Bon appetit

Total cost... $1.18