Pumpkins!

 

In late July we harvested what remained of our Seminole pumpkins.  

 

We lost over 50% of them to worms, and although I hate losing that much of a harvest 50% was as much as I could deal with!  After a few weeks of them sitting on the porch and every Sunday evening me saying, “Now THIS week I have got to set everything else aside and get to those pumpkins!”, I finally got to those pumpkins.  Finally!  

 Pumpkins take quite a bit of work to preserve.  To start, they must be cut up into 1-inch cubes.  If you are like us, this process also includes taking out the seeds and separating them from the pumpkin “guts” to save for next year’s crop or to roast for winter snacks. 

 

Sometimes I find a surprise while I am doing that part.

Yes, that really was growing inside!
 

I had the bright idea to measure the cubes as I cut them so I can know when I have enough to process 16 pints.  The answer is a lot.

While the jars and lids are warming, the water gets heating on the stove and the cubes are boiled for 2 minutes. 

The cubes are then immediately placed into the nicely warmed pint jars and then covered with the water they were boiled in.  I appreciate that.  Potatoes have to be covered with clean water due to their starch content which is almost more big stock pots on my stove than I have room for!

 

Once the jars are filled, they go in the pressure canner, stacked 2 high because I have a beast of a pressure canner, the top goes on, and the processing begins.  Pints of pumpkins must process under pressure for 55 minutes.  This is why I process pint jars instead of quarts even though I usually use 2 pints for any pumpkin recipe.  Quarts have to be processed for 90 minutes.  No thanks!

 

I also decided to experiment with my dehydrators this year.   

 

 

Turns out pumpkins do quite well in the dehydrator and 5 trays of thinly sliced pumpkin (hurray for my Pampered Chef mandoline slicer!!) after 20 hours yielded a whopping ¼ cup of pumpkin powder.  It’s not a lot, but I’ll use that to make pumpkin syrup and have a pumpkin spice lattè or two.  

 



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 And next year I will try a little harder to beat the worms to the pumpkins!

So far my processing count is up to 36 pints with only 1 non-sealed for a 97% success rate.

Round #2.  18 pints processed, 18 pints sealed. Happy Dance!
 

State law only allows me to sell things processed in a boiling water bath, so these will not be available for sale.  However, next year ~ if I can beat the worms! ~ I will have pumpkin powder available so you can make your own lattès, pancakes, breads, soups, or whatever else you can imagine!

Happy Fall!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Watermelons And a Quail Recipe

    For a lot of years each fall when we discuss how the garden went over the past year, Cletus has said something along the lines of, "I am not trying watermelons any more!".  For a lot of years plus one, each winter when we are planning the next year's garden he says something along the lines of, "I am going to give watermelons one more try.  If they do not work this year, I am done with them". This year we have used landscape fabric in the garden and it has been helpful for things we often struggle to grow.  It keeps the weeds down, it keeps the pests down, and it keeps the water in the soil.  A few weeks ago we were looking over the garden and realized there was a watermelon over on one section of the fabric!   The variety is not a seedless hybrid but just a good, old-fashioned, seed-heavy, seed-spitting watermelon.  While it is not as sweet as some seedless varieties, it has that extra we-raised-it-ourselves-in-our-own-garden flavor. ...
Read more

Quail Housing Part 2: Cages

Image
  Once we decided to stop using aviaries for our quail, Cletus started perusing YouTube Videos (a wealth of information!) for how different people built quail cages.  We both thought "Roll-Out" cages were interesting for the design to allow eggs to "roll out" to the front of the cage where they could be retrieved easily.  We got this idea from Dale's Quails (he sells kits) and Wynola Ranch (they sell prebuilt wire roll-outs).  Cletus was still working an 8 to 5 job at this time, but he got to work after 5 and on weekends to get these built.  Oh my! The first time you build anything is the most challenging, isn't it?  We did not purchase a set of blueprint plans from anyone, or a kit; he simply went to Home Depot, bought the lumber, the wire, and the hardware, and got to work.  It cost more and took longer than we were expecting.  There were some frustrations along the way.  But eventually he got 'er done (he always does; Cletus is AMAZING lik...
Read more

Recipe: Scotch Quail Eggs

Image
  Have you heard of Scotch Eggs?  They are a unique dish made of hard boiled eggs wrapped in sausage, breaded, and fried.   I made some years ago with our chicken eggs.  The size of the eggs made me question just how in the world does one serve these?? I tried slicing them different ways (wedges like a lemon, round slices, quartered) and they never seemed to work right for me. When we began keeping quail several years ago I wondered how quail eggs would do as Scotch Eggs.  I figured they would work better given their smaller size, but somehow I just never got around to trying them. A few weeks ago a gentleman stopped by our booth at the market and was happy to find our quail eggs.  I asked him how he was planning to use them and he told me he was going to make Scotch Eggs.   That settled it.  It was time for me to try my hand at this! Cletus has some food allergies, so my choice for sausage reflects our need to avoid corn products but yo...
Read more