Fall seems to be coming early in Oxford in a number of ways. First of all, it's been unseasonably cool, with the weather barely getting in the mid-80s for most of the month (last year, we had 20 days above 90 in August!). Secondly, in the last two days I've harvested most of the pumpkins and butternut squash from my garden, and went apple picking. These are both activities that I associate with September and October so I was surprised that the pumpkins were actually ripe, and that the apples that are in season (Paula Reds) are so tasty. I think I may be thrown off because the growing season is slightly longer here than in waaaay Upstate NY where I'm from.
I was a little disappointed in my "New England Pie Pumpkins." While I think a bigger pumpkin might not have made it in my little garden, and would have taken longer to ripen, the pie pumpkins didn't seem less stringy than regular pumpkins. On the other hand, they did produce a lot of pulp for such small pumpkins.
They seemed to be a bit dry (maybe still a bit under ripe, or dried out from the stove?) so once I roasted the pumpkin and scooped out the flesh, I pureed it with some water in the blender. Other pumpkins that I've used have enough juice that water isn't necessary, but adding the water didn't seem to hurt the quality of the puree. It's a bit strenuous, but it's really satisfying to eat pumpkin bread made with pumpkins from your backyard.
The bread above was made from a recipe I got from my mother, with a few health-conscious modifications:
Pumpkin Bread
Wet Ingredients
2 c pumpkin puree
3 c sugar (I lowered this to 2 1/4 and it still was sweet)
1 c water
1 c veg oil
4 eggs
Dry Ingredients
3 1/3 c flour (I use a least half whole wheat flour)
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp nutmeg
3/4 tsp cloves
Preheat oven to 350. Mix wet ingredients in a large bowl, mix dry ingredients in another large bowl. Add dry to wet (wet bowl should be very large!) and pour into two oiled and floured bread pans. Bake for 60-70 minutes. Allow to cool for 15 minutes.
I also found a recipe in Preserving Summer's Bounty that allows for more local ingredients to be used: just substitute 2 c honey for sugar, decrease water to 2/3 c and increase flour to 3 1/2 c.
