Celebrating Christmas in July always sounds fun. But what's even more fun is harvesting (volunteer) pumpkins in July! Last fall we threw out the remains and seeds of a pie pumpkin into our woods. Low and behold, the seeds sprouted and grew us a nice vine with three lovely pumpkins in JULY! Since it's not fall, I really didn't feel like making any pumpkin products so I decided to roast them instead.
I read several different opinions about how to roast pumpkins online and settled with the cutting in half, removing the seeds, and roasting at 375 degrees for around an hour. Note the aluminum foil I used to line the pan--don't bother with it. The pumpkins' juice ran underneath the foil and I had to wash the pan anyway.
After about 1 hr, the pumpkins were soft enough to use a spoon to scoop out their flesh.
I then processed the pumpkin in a food processor and then drained it to remove extra juice (some folks online thought this improved the quality of frozen pumpkin--we'll see).
I packed the pumpkin puree, 1 cup per bag to make it easy to use in recipes. And then placed it in my lovely chest freezer!
And that leftover juice? I'll put it into a smoothie for the boys to amp up the nutrients of our summer snack.
We are growing jack-o-lantern pumpkins to share with family and friends in front of our house. We put the seeds in the ground a little late for South Carolina but they're doing well so far. This is the first time we've used the groundcover to keep the weeds under control.
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