Free and Easy

So I was doing my shopping this weekend and my checkout gal turned out to be my neighbor. In neighborly fashion she pointed out to me that pumpkins were free if I wanted one. At first I hesitated, and the bag-girl said "I'll get it!" and so I decided why-not. I suppose I could do something with it. Keep in mind (a) I have already made no less than 8 pumpkin related dishes from canned pumpkin over the past two months. I was not sure how the boy would react to more pumpkin. (b) I had never tackled a raw pumpkin, and this one was of rotund waist.

After a little bit of online research and a little bit of questioning from the boy, I began my free food journey with his critical eye hovering near. I decided to make pumpkin seeds and roast pumpkin flesh. Turns out both were pretty easy, but required a bit of perseverance and upper body strength.

Pumpkin Seeds
Preheat oven to 400. Then I cut open my pumpkin jack-o-lantern style and pulled the guts out, separating the guts from the seeds. I rinsed the seeds a few times in a colander, brought a 4 qt pot of salted water to boil and threw the seeds in for about 10 minutes. Then I drained them. I drizzled some oil over a shallow baking pan, threw the seeds in there and messed them around with my hand till they were coated and spread evenly across the bottom in one layer. As for seasoning, I chose a few sprinkles of smoked paprika, sea salt and fresh ground pepper. Bake for about 10 minutes, but really keep an eye on them. Let cool before you eat, and save the rest in air tight container.

Roasted Pumpkin
The boy and I really really enjoyed this. The flavor is very different from canned and puree...Closer to sweet potato plus squash. Plus I have enough for the whole winter.

I started out by struggling to cut the big vegetable up and was quickly brushed aside as my "man" made short work of the pumpkin. He then proceeded to show me how he would clean the remaining guts from the pieces if HE was going to do it. Prep work not being my favorite, I cooed and encouraged while I made myself a drink. When he finished, I handed him a drink as well.

We placed the pumpkin pieces flesh up on baking pans and rubbed them with olive oil. I seasoned with crushed dried rosemary, sea salt and ground pepper, but I bet thyme would be good too. We put this in the same 400 oven as the seeds and let it cook for about an hour. Stick a fork in the flesh to see if it is tender. After it cooled off, I pulled the skins off the large pieces of pumpkin (easy) and roughly chopped them into large chunks.

I portioned away a bunch in ziplocs and put them in the freezer. When I served them with dinner last night I sauteed the chunks to warm them up in a tablespoon of butter with a dash of olive oil so it doesn't burn. Then I sprinkled with more salt, rosemary, pepper and the juice of one 1/4 lemon. MMMMMMMM good. I think there is caramelizing going on somewhere, and then the comforting rosemary, the rich texture of the pumpkin, the freshness of the lemon juice...good. I think I will serve with some roast chicken and potatoes later this week.

We were grateful for: The boy was grateful he had a friend who would come help him figure out a problem for school. I was grateful I didn't have to run an event for work tomorrow.