Canning Pumpkin

Blessings, Darlings! 

It's that time of year again - the hard squashes are in!  I'll be stocking up this week, while they are on sale at the grocer, but on Nov 1 your can probably get 'Halloween Pumpkins" for free at pumpkin patches.  Not the best tasting flesh, but great for seeds (especially the tiny ones).

I usually just keep them fresh, if you buy good quality ones they don't go bad quickly.  But I have canned them if I have a bunch and several go bad at once.

Always can cubes -  home canning puree doesn't work, you risk botulism.  You do NOT want to risk that.

Clean 'em of strings and seeds, wash 'em, cut 'em into 1 inch cubes, remove rind.  Boil for 2 minutes.  Fill jars with the cubes and the water you boiled them in, leaving 1 inch at top of jar.  Add tops/rings. 

Pressure can at 10 pounds (15 if over 1000 feet) pints for 55 minutes, quarts for 90 minutes.

Frondly, Fern

Post Halloween Pumpkins

Somehow I had the impression that after about November 1 the harvest is supposed to be over and all the food will have been safely stored. It's sure not that way in my house!

Yes, Fronds, I picked up my annual supply of 10 pumpkins. This year a few days after Halloween one of the churches that had been selling them even put a post on Freecycle inviting folks to take them. So far I've only fully processed ONE of them. Half of another will be blanched and put in the dehydrator this evening. I'm getting well and truly tired of hearing the fan of the dehydrator, but I'm never tired of eating.

It was easier to can them, but I just don't have enough jars or room to store them. I had thought that I had 10 dozen jars, but I only have about 100. Which is only about 1/3 of how many I'd LIKE to have.

Next year, Gods willing and if the creek don't rise, I'm going to get some of the leftover 'little pumpkins' that they had, too. No meat for cooking, but they looked like they were incredibly full of seeds! Yum!

Off to cook dinner, then blanch the slices. Laters!


Frondly, Fern