Pumpkins

A hollowed out pumpkin makes a good vase. The color orange seems to go with almost anything at this time of year. Pumpkins aren't just for Halloween. We can use them right up till Christmas. I like to have a couple of uncarved ones here for table decorations. Native Americans dried strips of pumpkin and wove them into mats. They also roasted long strips of pumpkin on the open fire and ate them. The origin of pumpkin pie occurred when the colonists sliced off the pumpkin top, removed the seeds, and filled the insides with milk, spices and honey. The pumpkin was then baked in hot ashes. This is a far cry from the delicious pumpkin pies of today. I love to make different pumpkin dishes. I've used it to substitute for squash in some recipes. Here are a few that I've tried: pumpkin soup, pumpkin pound cake, pumpkin pancakes, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin bread, pumpkin cookies and probably more that I can't think of. I read that 90-95% of processed pumpkins are grown in Illinois. Early colonists used pumpkin for a crust ingredient...not the filling. Can you imagine...a pumpkin pie crust? I've always wondered why we don't use pumpkin year round. Why not a pumpkin pie for Easter? I guess we better stick with tradition and save it for the fall months. Every year my pumpkin outside gets carved by the many critters that live in my yard. I had one in the woods last year. It sat there all through the winter and in the spring...the seeds germinated and I had pumpkin vines intermixed with the Honeysuckle. This year I didn't buy pumpkins for outside. No gooey, icky mess to clean up. I have a pie pumpkin on my kitchen table...maybe I'll make a pie from scratch or a pumpkin cake. I made a pumpkin cake for my son Tim's birthday one year. It looked delicious..with cream cheese frosting. When it was time to have the birthday cake...it seemed a little more moist that it should have been, when I cut into it. We sang happy birthday and Tim took the first bite of cake. His face told the story...yuck..it was awful. My Dad, who didn't want to hurt my feelings said, "Ah pumpkin cake...I'd like another piece." No one else took seconds, in fact no one finished theirs. Tim said later, " Stick with the old recipes, Mom.
Balisha
Balisha