Pumpkins, Pancakes and A Woodstove

Saturday afternoon we took the kids to get a pumpkin for the front porch. I was not at all pleased at the pumkin farm we have been going to. This year they charged $2.50 just to walk in their gate to buy a pumpkin. Every thing there had an additional charge. WTH? Believe me this tiny farm is not a carnival and does not have anything to draw much of a crowd. The pumpkins this year were not good either. We left quickly and saught out other means of pumpkin goodness. The pumpkin is bigger than the baby and he weighs in at 21 1/2 pounds! We drove a few miles into the tiny town that is our county seat, turned right and just as we passed under the railroad trussel we made a left into a little garden patch. We eagerly made purchase of green tomatoes, old fashion tan cheese pumpkins, sugar pumpkins, a cushaw pumpkin and the kids chose a huge pumpkin for their jack o'latern for Tuesday night. Cushaw pumpkin The cushaw pumpkin is an odd looking thing making one mistake it for a gourd or squash but it is a pumpkin. It is also a variety prized in the Appalachian mountains. It makes a better pie than any other pumpkin I am told. The neck is solid meat.The dar area is the juice welling up. So, I brought it home and scrubbed it up. It was a beautiful pumpkin. Heavy and firm. The fat end is slightly hollow and not filled with nearly as much goop and seed as the standard field pumpkin for jack o'lanterns. When I sliced into it to scrape out the seeds immediately the juice began to weep from the yellow flesh. It was just gorgeous. I baked it at 375 degrees for about an hour. Being large as it was (about 5 pound maybe) it took two pans and two roasting sessions. It is cooked when it is fork tender, about an hour, maybe a little longer for the thick neck pieces. Allowing it to cool I then scraped the meat out of the skin and mashed it with a potato masher. The meat flaked apart easily with a fork. I ended up with almost four quarts of mashed pumpkin meat. With a little butter, salt and pepper this is perfect for a supper side dish as is. (Maybe served it with chicken or pork chops. Yummy.) Sunday morning, I went into the kitchen peeked at my pumpkin meat and wondered what to do with so much pumpkin. We can't eat that much pie even if I am giving one to the neighbors. The light bulb went on and I thought "Pumpkin Pancakes!" We heat our kitchen with an old cast iron wood stove. I use my cast iron griddle pan on it. So this morning as the griddle heated on the fire I pulled out an old recipe for pancakes and got busy with breakfast. Pancakes (and other things) cook better on cast iron with wood heat. We had bacon and sausage and piles of pumpkin pancakes. Not one was left over. The baby ate an entire pancake himself also with a cup of milk. You know they had to be good! You can find the recipe over on my recipe journal listed under cushaw pumpkin pancakes. Tomorrow I will show and tell all about pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and pumpkin soup. Steve liked the cushaw pumpkin so much he asked me to go get another 1 or 2 to put in freezer so we can have the pie and bread at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Believe me, if Steve wants more, it is damn good because he doesn't have any food preference much at all. If I didn't make him eat meals he would go days without eating. Find yourself a cushaw pumpkin and be prepared for a bread recipe that is delicious and good enough to give as a gift.