Its Pumpkin time!

With Halloween gone, most of the pumpkin patches around here will liquidate all their left over inventory for free, just so they will not have to haul it back with them. Well, count your blessings and load up a truck. You will find if your pumpkins are the same size as mine, you will need 2.5 pumpkins per Quart of finished product.

Step 1: Step 1: Wash and skin. To be honest I did not wash them first..... Also get a pot of water boiling.

Step 2: Cut them in half and gut them. It pays to do this well. The guts are what make for bad pumpkin recipe's. They are gross, and now is the time to get the guts totally out. I have an old spoon that seems like a torture device, it is very thin and the edges nearly cut your mouth as you use it. Well, this was perfect for taking a thin layer of the inner pumpkin out.

Step 3: Cut the pumpkin into little blocks or cubes, no larger than 1 inch x 1 inch ((x 1 inch) if you have thick enough pumpkin to consider them cubes, rather than bricks.)

Step 4: Dump them into boiling water (refer to step 1) for 2 minutes.

Step 5: Strain the pumpkin and water, but SAVE the water. You will use it to fill the jars after the jars are filled with the flesh of the pumpkin. leave 1 inch head space. This is more than your normal fruit, because this has a greater volume expansion.

Step 6: Put your lids on, just not too tight. Remember in the processing of the jars, some air needs to escape, so just tighten the lids and bands firmly, but not like Hercules.


Now all that is left to do is the pressure canning. I live in an area that is at sea level so it took 10 Lbs. of pressure for 90 minutes. Its slow, but with 7 Quarts per cycle, it's worth it.


Now all I have to do is learn to use these in a good recipe


Hope you enjoy. Please leave any good recipe's you may have for pumpkin bread, soup, or pie, Thanks!