dado potato
11-5-12, 9:48am
In this thread I hope to attract some tips and kitchen-tested recipes for preparing and cooking pumpkins that may have been carved for Halloween and frozen/thawed a few days outdoors.
Here is how I prepared our jack-o-lantern for cooking:
The lid had some soot on it. Discard...add to compost.
The frozen pumpkin had some colonies of black mold inside. Thoroughly remove, by scraping with a large spoon. Discard ... more compost.
With a paring knife, cut down to the two corners of mouth, remove "face" above the lower lip. Discard. (It could have been eaten as well, but I felt there would have been a high ratio of trim around eyes, nose and mouth... which did not seem worth the bother.)
Rinse the interior of the pumpkin with cold tap water, inspecting for and removing any mold or other dreck that might remain.
Cut 12 or more wedges with a paring knife, sawing from top to bottom. Since I cut right-handed, I hold the top of the pumpkin in my left hand, above the back of the knife blade, during each cut. I follow (more or less) the vertical grooves in the surface, proceeding counterclockwise from the space where the jack-o-lantern's face used to be... all the way around.
After each cut, down to the flat bottom, I made an interior diagonal cut at the bottom of the wedge. Then with a little pull with the left hand, the wedge snaps out. When I lifted the wedge, most of the orange skin peeled away and remained attached to the bottom of the pumpkin.
Any orange skin still adhering to a wedge of pumpkin can be planed off with the paring knife.
To reduce the wedges to smaller sized morsels, I placed 5-6 frozen wedges on a plate and microwaved for 3-5 minutes. I cut the thawed pumpkin wedges into half-inch slices.
Refrigerate.
Here is how I prepared our jack-o-lantern for cooking:
The lid had some soot on it. Discard...add to compost.
The frozen pumpkin had some colonies of black mold inside. Thoroughly remove, by scraping with a large spoon. Discard ... more compost.
With a paring knife, cut down to the two corners of mouth, remove "face" above the lower lip. Discard. (It could have been eaten as well, but I felt there would have been a high ratio of trim around eyes, nose and mouth... which did not seem worth the bother.)
Rinse the interior of the pumpkin with cold tap water, inspecting for and removing any mold or other dreck that might remain.
Cut 12 or more wedges with a paring knife, sawing from top to bottom. Since I cut right-handed, I hold the top of the pumpkin in my left hand, above the back of the knife blade, during each cut. I follow (more or less) the vertical grooves in the surface, proceeding counterclockwise from the space where the jack-o-lantern's face used to be... all the way around.
After each cut, down to the flat bottom, I made an interior diagonal cut at the bottom of the wedge. Then with a little pull with the left hand, the wedge snaps out. When I lifted the wedge, most of the orange skin peeled away and remained attached to the bottom of the pumpkin.
Any orange skin still adhering to a wedge of pumpkin can be planed off with the paring knife.
To reduce the wedges to smaller sized morsels, I placed 5-6 frozen wedges on a plate and microwaved for 3-5 minutes. I cut the thawed pumpkin wedges into half-inch slices.
Refrigerate.