Happy Hallowe'en!

Hallowe'en seems to have come around very quickly! Over the past couple of months I realised there was still a few bags of pumpkin mush in the freezer that I needed to use up before creating new mush for the next year of pumpkin pies and pumpkin muffins. Too late I also realised I had never posted pictures or my recipe for pumpkin pie -- I'll try to remember to document the next time I am baking (it is very delicious!). In the meantime, the pumpkins were carved the day before Hallowe'en while listening to spooky music and that meant the biproduct of carving - seeds - needed roasting. In case you are not aware of how delicious these seeds are to snack on, follow the link here for my post from 2016. 

These are the two pumpkins that were carved in my house! They'll be turned into mush for the freezer in a couple of days. I gave full details of that process in a post from 2020 here.

Meanwhile, many houses are decorated for this spooky season. I was walking around one of the neighbourhoods locally and saw a few houses decked out quite well.

Cobwebs on bushes, spiders, ghosts, witches and pumpkins are all part of the fun.

Oh yes, and lots of scary skulls! By the way, the pumpkin muffins are good for other occasions too -xmas, Valentine's Day, Paddy's Day or even as a birthday cake - it's all in the decoration. Here is this very versatile recipe. Happy Hallowe'en!

Preparing pumpkin mush for cakes, muffins and pies

I know I posted details of making pumpkin mush a few years ago, here, but decided to again while pumpkin muffins were on my mind: I made a huge batch of them a few days ago, in advance of Valentine's Day. The main thing is to make use of all the pumpkins available in October (in my family we usually get two to carve for Hallowe'en and then cut them up for cooking when the festivities are over). Basically the pumpkins are cut into cubes, after removing the hard outer skin.The cubes are cooked with some water (not too much as they contain a lot of water), lemon zest, and lemon juice.

Drain the fluid when all cubes are fully cooked and softened.

Mash.

When cool measure into 400-450g bags and freeze.

I usually have about 6 or 7 bags for the freezer, which is enough to last me the whole year, making cakes and muffins and pies for special occasions. For Valentine's Day I made nearly four dozen muffins but forgot to take a picture of the muffins after I iced them. Today there are only 4 left! The muffins are light and delicious, the pumpkin mush makes them moist. The recipe I use for muffins and cake is here. One 450g bag of pumpkin mush will make 2 delicious pies, though I have not posted that recipe YET!

Happy Hallowe'en!

Happy Hallowe'en! It's that time of year again - the clocks have gone back an hour, the sun is setting really early, and I have taken my winter coat and scarf out of the cupboard. The heat has been on a few times now as there is a definite chill in the air. 

This year's pumpkins seem a little more abstract than in previous years. The lower pumpkin, carved by my husband was inspired by our recent trip to the Picasso Museum in Barcelona and seeing Picasso's version of "Las Meninas".

When the two pumpkins were carved (by husband and teen), it was up to me to wash and roast the seeds. This is an easy and tasty snack and I have given more details here.

Using last year's pumpkin mush (a few packs left in the freezer), we had made muffins earlier. It was a family affair as we decorated the muffins when cooled, after the pumpkins were carved. Details of how to make pumpkin mush after Hallowe'en are here and the muffin recipe is here.

Hallowe'en!

As well as all the excitement of carving pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns every October,

it is the season for me to take out last year's pumpkin mush from the freezer and make a few batches of muffins. These get decorated as jack-o-lanterns too and get sent into school and/or Girl Guides with my daughter for her and her friends. If I have enough mush, I can make additional batches of muffins for sharing around elsewhere.

So after Hallowe'en night, the carved pumpkins get chopped and peeled and cut up into small cubes or rectangles.

A large orange (or several small ones or clementines) and a lemon are peeled and juiced. The juice and a tiny bit of water are added to the pot of pumpkin cubes (the pumpkin release a lot of water when cooking). The peel is cut into slivers

and added to the pot. Cook this gently on low-medium heat, stirring periodically, in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan.

When all the pumpkin is cooked, it is soft enough to be mashed. Tilt the pot a bit to see how much liquid there is; if there is a lot of liquid, raise the heat to boil some of it off,

The pumpkin mush needs to be moist in order to give moisture and flavour to future pumpkin muffins. I will give the recipe for the muffins in another post, but if you can't wait, use pumpkin mush in the same recipes that you use for carrot cake or banana bread. Compare the picture below to the picture above to get an idea of how much liquid should not be left in the final mush.

I packed the mush into equal size freezer bags. In the past I have used weights of 350 g and 500 g, which also work fine in my recipes for muffins, and also in pumpkin pie (I'll give a recipe for that in a future post too). So it is a little bit random that these packs are 450 g but I figured it was a reasonable amount when I was packing and weighing. I put the 3 bags of mush into an additional freezer bag but will only use one bag at a time. One bag of mush will happily be used in a recipe that makes about 5 dozen small muffins or 2 pies.