Guest Post: Making Your Own Pumpkin Puree

Guest Post by Katie from Frugal Femina

Did you panic when you heard there might be a pumpkin shortage? My stores have plenty, but the rumors made me wonder what I would do in a pinch. At first I thought, "I can live without pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving."

Then someone posted on Twitter about making their own pie filling from a real, live pumpkin {gasp!}. So I thought I'd give it a try. You know what? It's easy to do, and your kiddos will love scooping out the seeds. Check out these tips.

Pie pumpkins are smaller than the kind you might use for carving--usually about 6-8 inches each. Walmart sells them for $0.78/lb. I got them for $3/pumpkin at a pumpkin farm. I got 5, because pumpkins are about 90% water, and I wanted to make sure I had enough.

I ended up with so much puree I had to freeze some in a plastic container. I love pumpkin, though, and will definitely put it to good use!

Here's how I turned the pumpkins from the pumpkin farm into pumpkin puree:

When I got home, I washed the pumpkin with plain water.

Then I cut off the stem.

Next, I cut the pumpkin in half with a large, serrated knife. I'm told you're less likely to slip and cut yourself with a serrated knife. I would much rather eat pumpkin than go to the ER. How 'bout you?

I scooped out the seeds/strings with an ice cream scoop. You can save the seeds to roast or plant next year. We did both.

I put the pumpkin halves in a dish with a couple of inches of water. I didn't have a deep enough dish with a lid, so I just covered them with a dish towel and  microwaved them for 30 minutes. You can cook them in the oven, but it takes a little longer.

The skin slid right off the pumpkin once it was cooked through.

Next, I pureed it in the food processor until it was smooth. It took a minute or two. You'll want to drain off any free-standing water. And now you're ready to bake!

I ended up making:

Pumpkin Cookies
Pumpkin Coconut Bread
THE Pumpkin Dessert
Pumpkin Pie Oatmeal
Pumpkin Dinner Rolls (I served these with Cinnamon Honey Spread--1/2 cup softened butter or margarine blended with 1 cup powdered sugar, 1/4 cup honey, and 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon.)

Want more tips? Check out PickYourOwn.org. It's my favorite resource for all things preserving.

Katie is a pastor's wife, a stay-at-home mama of one little munchkin, and a part-time nursing student. Her family lives in a little cabin on a farm in Kentucky. Katie has been blogging since 2005, and she shares fun and thrifty talk for a well-managed home at her latest project, Frugal Femina.

Eating From The Pantry Challenge: Day 4

It's been 14 days since I've stepped foot into a grocery store and four days that we've officially been eating from the pantry. I have to say, I'm rather enjoying this challenge and was excited with the meals I came up with today.

The funny thing is, I keep feeling like we have "nothing left in the cupboards and refrigerator" and while they are barer than usual, we keep finding plenty to eat. It just makes me realize how truly blessed we are in the abundance we have. And this challenge has reminded me of this anew.

Here's what we ate:

Breakfast: Leftover biscuits (from dinner last night) with butter and honey, apple slices, and scrambled eggs with cheese

Lunch: Tuna salad sandwiches on hamburger buns with carrot sticks

Snack: No bake cookies

Dinner: Steak, baked potatoes, green bean casserole, ice cream

If you're eating from your pantry this week, I'd love to hear what was on your menu today!

Guest Post: Building an "Emergency Fund" of Food

photo by bkajino

Guest Post by Hannah and Abby from Safely Gathered In

Syndicated radio host Dave Ramsey advises his listeners to set up an emergency fund that consists of three to six months of living expenses. The fund is for "just in case" situations like job loss and medical or auto emergencies--basically a source of cash for unexpected tough times.

Along this same line of thinking, it is also smart to consider setting up an emergency fund of food. Thinking of your long-term food needs is not only for "gloom-and-doom" situations. By systematically storing food that your family enjoys eating, you will be able to purchase the food on your plan when it is at rock-bottom prices, learn to plan and budget better, and give your family peace of mind.

Building a three month supply of food can seem daunting at first—it is a lot of food!  But it can be done. The first step is to plan meals you want to store. It won't do you much good to just store random food items. 

Make a menu plan and post it on your pantry door for easy reference. Ideally, you want to plan meals that only use non-perishable items so your food storage isn't ruined if you lose electricity and your freezer food thaws. Spaghetti, rice and beans, chicken pot pie, and vegetarian taco soup are some excellent meals that can be made completely from pantry (non-perishables) items.

Once your meals are planned out, write down all the ingredients you need on one "Master List." Each time you visit the grocery store, look at what's on sale and stock up reasonably on the things from your list. Or, you can just buy one extra full meal every time you shop. Soon you will have a week of extra meals, then a month, and so on.

A supply of food should be built up slowly according to both your budget and plan. Do not go into debt building your food storage—that's neither frugal or responsible. Don't "hoard" food either. Only buy what you need and what your family will enjoy eating. Then use it when you need it.

The third important step in creating your emergency fund of food is rotation. Even non-perishable food can spoil. This is why it's so important to "store what you eat and eat what you store."

In order to avoid wasting the money that you spent purchasing the non-perishable food items, pay close attention to expiration dates, and devise a system for rotation. For example, if you have cans of veggies or fruit in your food storage, eat them. Then, when you replace the items you've taken out, put the new food in the back so the old food gets eaten first. Food storage is a constant cycle of buying, storing, rotating, eating, and replacing.

Do we only serve food storage meals to our families? Of course not! We like to try new food storage recipes weekly and we also like to eat a lot of fresh foods in the summertime. We rotate our supply, usually eating at least one food storage meal per week, sometimes more. Because the foods are non-perishable, there is not any pressure to use them immediately. At the same time, if we don't feel like cooking what we had planned for dinner, we can fall back on one of the food storage classics, and no one will complain.

Just recently, Abby and her family had a tight month financially with some car issues. The one expense they could confidently cut was their food budget. She stopped going to the grocery store completely except to get a few things like milk, eggs, and a little produce. Did they starve? Not at all! They ate delicious, nutritious meals. In fact, no one even noticed she hadn't been shopping as long as they didn't look in her fridge. 

Remember, don't be overwhelmed when it comes to building an emergency fund of food--take it one step at a time. Start by making small goals like storing one week of food, then two weeks, and so on  Then when you hit those bumps in life, feeding your family will be something you don't have to think about.

Hannah and Abby share recipe ideas, food preservation tutorials, and more information regarding food storage at SafelyGatheredIn.blogspot.com.

Input requested: Ideas for using pears?

My family has a pear tree and lots of extra pears this year so my mom shared two big grocery sacks full of pears with us this week. I've been having fun coming up with creative ways to use them.

I've already made some pear sauce and am thinking of pear muffins or pear crisp, but I'd love to hear any and all ideas you all might have for ways to use the abundance of pears I have on my hands right now. I'm especially looking for very inexpensive, fairly simple ideas which are also nutritious.

Any input? I'll share what I end up doing with them in a post soon!

Guest Post: All From One Little Pumpkin

Guest Post by Monica from The Homespun Heart

One of my favorite Fall decorations is a simple pumpkin! I recently purchased a 3.4 lb. pie pumpkin at Wal-Mart for $0.78/lb. I thought it would be fun to see how much we could do with just one pumpkin several days in a row to really stretch the value of purchasing it! Join me as we follow the life of the this small pumpkin...

When I first brought the pumpkin home, it made a lovely decoration perched on my porch.

A few days later, it made a fun greeting for a few ladies I had over for an Autumn in Avonlea gathering.

The next morning, it made a fun vase for our First Day of Autumn breakfast.

And, at lunch, a great hiding place for lunch during our scavenger hunt.

Next, I cooked the pumpkin. (Just half the pumpkin and place cut side down on a baking sheet for one hour at 350 degrees; I got about four cups of cooked pumpkin from the two pumpkins I cooked.)

I used the cooked pumpkin and made some delicious Pumpkin Struesel Muffins.

Pumpkin Streusel Muffins

1/4 c. margarine or butter, softened
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. brown sugar
2/3 c. pumpkin
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 eggs
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

Streusel Topping:
1/3 c. flour
3 Tbsp. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. cold butter or margarine

For muffins: cream together margarine and sugars. Add all remaining ingredients and mix together. In a separate bowl, cut together streusel ingredients and sprinkle over muffin batter. Bake in prepared muffin tin at 375 for 20-25 minutes. Makes one dozen muffins. Original recipe from Quick Cooking May/June 2000.

We were able to tie the muffins into our homeschooling this week by having an 'unbirthday' party (we've been reading Ask Mr. Bear!)

Then we toasted the seeds for a snack. Here's the recipe we used:

Sugared Pumpkin Seeds

2 c. pumpkin seeds (from two pie pumpkins; rinsed and dried on a baking sheet for 48 hours)
1 egg white mixed with 1 Tbsp. water (save the egg yolk for your next batch of pancakes or scrambled eggs!)
1 c. sugar
3/4 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. salt

Mix seeds and egg white mixture. Add remaining spices and mix well. Spread on greased baking sheet and bake at 275 degrees for one hour stirring every 15 minutes.

I think I'll send some in my husband's lunch tomorrow. After this yummy baking, we took a short walk outside and enjoyed coming into a cozy smelling home!

All that from a $2.68 pumpkin!

How do you like to stretch a pumpkin? I look forward to hearing your ideas!

Monica enjoys blogging about the simple pleasures of faith, family and home over at The Homespun Heart.

Supercook: Recipes for the ingredients you have on hand

Thanks to Jennifer for introducing me to this incredible new recipe website:

Supercook is a recipe search engine that finds recipes you can make with the ingredients you have at home. To begin, simply start adding ingredients you have. The more ingredients you add, the better the results will be.

Supercook is similar to AllRecipes.com, but is much more exhaustive. If you've ever needed ideas for in cooking from your pantry or doing a better job of using what you have on hand, you'll definitely want to check this website out. You could add all the ingredients in your pantry, refrigerator, and freezer and come up with a whole week's worth of recipes or more!

What a resource this will be--especially when you feel fresh out of ideas. Thanks so much, Jennifer!