New Squash Season

While I picked plenty of zucchini in the garden yesterday, some other squash varieties were clamoring for attention.
Bright orange ones!

The butternut squash are not quite ready yet, but the pumpkin vines have been crumbling off of the pumpkins for a few days, so it seemed to be time to harvest the pumpkins.

My dad took a couple to Indiana for the grandkids, and I brought 7 home to turn into puree.
I chopped and shredded the zucchini while four of my pumpkins were roasting in the oven.

After I roasted them, I turned them into puree, and saved the seeds for a crispy snack.

I learned last fall that the easiest way to cook a pumpkin is to put the whole thing in a 350 degree oven (in a pan) with a few slits in the top to let the steam out. It doesn't work if you need chunks of pumpkin, but if you need puree for soup, bread, cookies, pie, etc., you can't beat this method.
I fit four pumpkins in the oven at once and cooked them for a little over an hour.
It's amazing how much easier a pumpkin is to carve after it is cooked!
The flesh comes right off of the skin with a small spoon and gentle pressure.
I used a hand blender to turn the stringy chunks into puree:
and then I got to work on the seeds.


I seasoned them with garlic powder, onion powder, seasoned salt, and pepper, then roasted the seeds at 350 until they popped. I was chopping apples and not paying attention to time, but my recipe, from Elspeth's blog, said that they would pop - and they did.In the meantime, I had picked up a bushel of apples at the farmers' market, and was working on a batch of apple butter. Since I was already looking for containers and measuring out large amounts of sugar and fall seasonings, I decided to make some pumpkin butter with my pumpkin puree.
Four cups of puree, plus four cups (!) of brown sugar, 5/8 tsp cinnamon, 1/4 tsp each of nutmeg, allspice, and ground cloves, and a couple of squirts of RealLemon juice. (The recipe called for the juice of two lemons, but I used the lemon juice I have on hand for canning.) I wanted to use some of my beautiful maple syrup, or at least some honey as sweetener, instead of all of the sugar, but I've never even eaten pumpkin butter before, and decided not to mess with the recipe until I knew what I was getting myself into. (I made half a batch, which made about 6 cups after simmering on low for an hour - while I made pesto.)

I'm not sure whether I like pumpkin butter or not. We don't have any bread in the house to eat with the pumpkin butter . . . because I'm having a little difficulty with the bread machine I'm borrowing from my parents. (I can't get it apart to wash it. I tried soaking it overnight. Twice.)
But it was a productive day, and I still have three whole pumpkins and about 4 cups of puree in the fridge. And since Jenna posted this recipe, I have an idea of what to do with it!