How to Keep Yourself in Pumpkin All Year Long

It’s the great shame of the season that dozens of pumpkins go to waste, mangled into candle-lit Bat-Signals and leering grotesques left to rot in the frost. When Thanksgiving rolls around and we turn solemnly inward to reflect on our united need for pie, all the good pie pumpkins are gone.

Take heed, pie folk! By following these simple maxims, you’ll be set up with more than enough pumpkin for your pies, breads, and cheesecakes for the rest of the year. If you think you don’t like pumpkin pie, you are wrong: You’ve probably just never had one made with fresh pumpkin.

• Buy small – The smaller pumpkins have more flavor and less stringiness. They are also far easier to handle than your prize-winning, but flavorless giants.

• Cut, don’t scrape – Trying to salvage the tasty innards of a pumpkin you intend to carve is noble, but tedious. Get yourself a sharp knife, hew the pumpkin in two with a muffled cry and thoughts of your boss’s head, and chop the whole thing into roughly inch-and-a-half cubes, sans skin. (Saving the seeds for roasting is optional, but advised.)

• Boil and freeze – You’ll have to cook the pumpkin, along with just enough water to cover (or even a little less), for about two hours or so, boiling first, then letting it do its thing over low heat. The pumpkin should be mushy when you’re done and easily slorped into Ziploc bags or plastic containers. I’d suggest measuring out the portions you will need for future recipes or at least writing down how much you’ve got stored in each bag with a Sharpie, as the pumpkin will freeze into an impenetrable lump.

Pumpkin will keep in the freezer pretty much forever to no deleterious effect. Some pumpkin varieties, like the Japanese kabocha, actually have a smoother texture after freezing; I suspect the freeze causes cellulose pockets to burst inside the kabocha flesh.

Or!

• Roast and freeze – Depending on what I’m making with the pumpkin, I may instead roast the pumpkin whole (or halved and scooped) for a one to two hours at medium heat—let’s say 350 or so, but it doesn’t have to be perfect—and scoop out the meat from the skin with a spoon. After roasting, the meat comes right out. Freeze as necessary.

Whether or not I roast or boil depends on if I plan on making my Grandmother’s pumpkin pie recipe, which is more of a custard than a traditional pie and is served by the more subtle flavor of boiled pumpkin. (Hers is my favorite pumpkin pie variation, but some people aren’t really fans of its consistency, so if you choose to try be warned it’s not the standard terra cotta concoction to which you may be accustomed.)