Pie punkins are wonderful!

Been a while since I posted here. I got caught up in drama at the apartment--we FINALLY have heat; they turned it on for four hours at one this morning--and in the election.

No matter whom you voted for, I hope you will join me in continuing to pray for the safety of all the candidates and their families. I find myself being quite worried that someone will take advantage of the time before the actual transition to attempt assassinations, so I've been praying--hard--for everyone's safety. It's taken quite a lot of energy on my part and tired me out enough to keep me offline more lately.

I just baked the second pie punkin yesterday. I had my own informal taste trial going, and made punkin bread first with butternut squash, then with cooked pie punkin, then last night with canned punkin.

There really is a difference. I don't know WHAT they do to get canned punkin so dark in color and so strong in taste; it could be the variety, I suppose (blue hubbard squash), but I wonder if it isn't the way they cook it... it seems almost as if they have cooked canned punkin down like you would cook apples down to make apple butter. Am I baking with punkin butter? I honestly don't know, and the only way to find out would be to find, pay for, and then somehow lug home one of those enormous blue hubbard squashes, then bake it and see what I'd gotten. They are SO big and so hard that I would have to bake it whole, I think.

I baked my pie punkin whole and that worked out well; slow-roasted it at 250 F for six hours. It cooked all the way through; the top part of it got darker than usual and tastes a little stronger... that's what made me wonder if canned punkin is cooked down. Plus, it was loads easier to deal with the seeds and strings once the whole thing was cooked.

Back to the taste trials---we loved the punkin breads made from butternut squash, from pie punkin, and for canned punkin. The taste varied from bread to bread, with the fresh squash/punkin breads being lighter in color and flavor, but all three of them were very nice. Now I know what to do with the occasional leftover squash!