Canning Pumpkin

There is a significant difference between anything made with canned pumpkin and those made with fresh pumpkin. When I was a child I was more than happy to eat things made with canned but now that I have tasted fresh I can't usually eat things made with the canned. Heck, it doesn't even look right. I know it, I'm a snob. So maybe if you don't want to be as picky as me, you should hit the Back button now and just use canned pumpkin in all your recipes. But if you want to impress yourself and your friends, use the fresh.

Firstly you need a pumpkin. Choose the heaviest one you can find - this means there is a lot of flesh in there. Check the rind: is it orange and smooth? Knock on it, you don't want a hollow-sounding one, these are dry and woody inside. Unlike pumpkins destined to be carved, the shape doesn't matter. A lot of people don't know that there are actually different kinds of pumpkins. The standard jack-o-lantern pumpkin (the 'Big Max') isn't the best one to cook; if your grocery store has sugar pumpkins or the 'Small Jack' variety get one of those instead. But I cooked the Big Maxes for years and they're okay, so if that's what you have it's fine.

If you plan on carving a pumpkin and then cooking the flesh, you must remove the top and scoop out the seeds and flesh, leaving the outer rind whole. This can take a while, since a properly-prepared carving pumpkin needs to be hollowed out to a 1/2 inch rind or less, and if you selected a nice heavy one, this means there will be a lot of flesh to scoop out. Much easier is sacrificing carving for cooking, and merely cut the entire pumpkin in wedges and remove the flesh in large sections with a good sharp knife. (Or you can cut it into strips and remove the rind with a vegetable peeler; then chop into chunks.)

Clean the seeds and pulp off of the flesh. If this was a carving pumpkin your flesh will already be in chunks, if not, cut it up into pieces less than 2 inches thick. Place in unsalted, boiling water and cook just like you would potatoes for mashing. When fork-tender, strain the pieces thouroughly and mash in a large bowl. I use a hand-held 'mixing wand' by Black and Decker. When in college I used a regular potato mashing tool. Just mash the stuff. :^)

Thing is with pumpkin, you need to remove absolutely as much water as possible. Best way is to put the mash in a cheese-cloth-lined colander over a bowl and stick the whole thing in the fridge for an hour or more.

Now, as is, this mashed, cooked pumpkin can be frozen, and will keep for a year or so. I suggest pre-measuring the mash into about one-and-a-half cup increments (this actually translates to one cup later on, because there will be more water you can drain off once you defrost it) and freezing it in freezer-safe ziplock bags. (If you do not pre-measure you will be sorry, as the stuff freezes into a material somewhat harder than cement.)

I recently found a new way to store pumpkin, and this way it lasts even longer! Canning pumpkin, when done a certain way, doesn't even require a canning machine. The trick is to can it with the sugar (and the spices, while you're at it) already added, because the sugar acts as a preservative. Basically what you end up with is what's known as 'pumpkin butter' - think of it as pie without the eggs and milk (or bread without the eggs, milk, and dry ingredients). You can add this to any pumpkiny recipe by omitting any sugar and spices called for in the recipe (and maybe adding a tad extra of the pumpkin butter). I love this method; I can butcher a few small sugar pumpkins one year and not need to deal with it again for a couple of years. Here's how you do it:

Fresh Canned Pumpkin Butter

You will need:

A pot big enough for all the pumpkin you made
A big pot with a lid, probably the biggest stockpot you have lying around, think 'big enough to boil a turkey in'
Mason jars for canning - I like the 1/2 pint ones because there's less chance of wasting the unused pumpkin butter later
Jar lifter (you might have to hunt around a bit to find one but there's really no other way to get a hot Mason jar out of boiling water)
A round metalcooling rack that will fit in the bottom of the stockpot - it's best not to have the jars sittng right on the bottom

For every 1 1/2 cups cooked mashed pumpkin add:
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
3/8 t ground nutmeg
3/8 t ground ginger
1/4 t ground cloves

Combine all ingredients in a pot; bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer uncovered for 30 minutes.

Half-fill the stockpot with water; bring to a boil.

Put your thouroughly washed-and-dried Mason jars in the hot water bath - they must be hot when you fill them. Pull them out (with the jar lifter! Yow!) and wipe dry with a towel; then fill them to 1/4 inch from the top with the hot pumpkin mixture. Twist on lids with bands and place them in the hot water bath (on the cooling rack). Lid 'er up.

How long do you leave them in there? I've seen instructions that say as little as 15 minutes but to be honest I usually let them go more than half an hour. There's no way to 'overcook' them, as far as I know. When you feel that they've been boiled enough, pull them out and set them on the counter to cool.

The top of a Mason jar has a little 'button' in the center that should suck down in a vacuum if the jars were boiled enough. If after several minutes any of the buttons don't suck down, retighten the band and reboil it; then pull it out and wait again.

That should do it! Store in a cool (not cold) place. When you're ready to use a jar, unscrew the band then gently pop off the lid with a bottle opener. Inspect the contents carefully; it should smell good, not ooze out of the jar, and be a reasonable spicy brown color. ;^) If you created the proper vacuum while canning all should be well.

You'll notice that fresh pumpkin cooks brown, while canned stays orange. And it tastes so much better, I can't even tell you.




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Hi...I love pumpkin that is fresh...I usually freeze my pumpkin after it is cooked and mashed...2 cups of pumpkin for each medium size freezer bag and that is all you put in them...2 cups of pumpkin will make 2 pumpkin pies...all other ingredients are added with the pumpkin for pie or for Pumpkin Bread,that my granddaughter Baleigh loves...