Joanne Roach (00:13)
Hello and welcome back to the Food for Kids podcast. I'm Joanne from the Foodies. This is the regular monthly episode where I run through some money saving tips to make that seasonal fruit and veg you bought last longer, go further and store better. The idea is to help you get the best out of your fresh produce so that you spend less, waste less and actually get round to eating what you've bought. As you might know from previous months, I build my content around seasonal produce and my main product that I sell is set of children's books set in a veggie patch. Each book focuses on a different fruit and veg that's in season that month and because I chose them to make sure that children would explore lots of different plant families during the course of the year, I'm using the produce from the books to talk through the storage and money tips here too so that we all cover them during the course of the year too.
October's book of the month is Pumpkin Feels Lonely, so we're talking about pumpkins and other thick-skinned winter squashes today. Whether you're just trying to make some use of the pumpkin you bought from Halloween, or you're taking advantage of lots of them being on sale at the end of the month so you can stock up for cheap, or you're a fan of butternut and other firm orange squashes in general, this is the episode to make the most of them.
When pumpkins and thick-skinned squashes are grown,they go through a process called curing which is basically the process of hardening up their skins so that the moisture can't get in or out in storage and to prevent organisms that would decay them from getting in through the skin. If you grow pumpkins or squashes yourself then you can either do that by leaving them on the plant in the autumn sunshine but cutting away some of leaves from around them so they get some more sun exposure or you can harvest them and then leave them somewhere bright and warm to cure for at least a couple of weeks. I usually put mine in the greenhouse but a bright window ledge or a kitchen worktop is just fine.
If you've bought squashes or pumpkins from the shops, then they will almost always already be cured, so you don't have to worry about that. But if you get given some by a friend who's grown them, or you get some from a farmer's market or pick your own place, then see how thick and dark in colour the skin is and if in doubt put them somewhere to cure. Colour is a good indicator. When butternut squashes grow they're actually pale green and yellow and usually streaky and then as you cure them they take on that pinky beige colour that we see in the shops and most pumpkins are usually pale or bright green while they're growing and then they start to turn orange or dark green depending on the variety as they cure and get more mature.
You can totally eat them before they're cured so if you get some as a gift by all means cook them but if you want to store them for a while then curing the skins is what you need to make them hardy. If you're buying squash or pumpkin from the shops, go for ones that feel heavy, they feel dense and full of flesh, they don't have any wrinkly skin or any soft spots, especially near the stem or the base as denser ones with no soft spots will last longer.
Once pumpkins and winter squash have got their thick skins in place and they won't need to be kept in a fridge, but you should take them out of the bright warm place and put them somewhere coolish and a bit darker. They can keep for many weeks or even months without going off in a cool cupboard or a pantry. You don't want them to get very cold either as they are a fruit and if they freeze in cold weather then the defrosting will make them go wet and slimy. So a cold shed is not a good place for the winter time. When they do start to go over it's usually either from the base where contact from the surface they're sitting on makes them start to rot or by getting rot in through either the stem or the base as those are the weak spots, a bit like a belly button where it was connected to the plant. So if you do grow squash, try to harvest them with a decent length of stem so they're less likely to get rot from the stem.
Eventually though they will all go, fresh food doesn't keep forever, so if you are storing squashes keep a regular check every few days or maybe once a week to see if they're starting to go a little bit soft anywhere, especially by the stem or a bit wrinkly. If they do then they're still totally edible, just cut off the bit that's gone soft and you can cook the parts that are still firm and crisp. But basically if you have a coolish cupboard or space in the house to store them, that's great.
If you've just bought one or two butternut squashes or pumpkins from the shops and you're intending to use them up within the next few weeks, you will probably find they store just fine on the worktop. Just don't store any apples or bananas near them as the gases that they give off can speed up ripening in other plants.
If you've started to use a pumpkin or squash for a recipe and have cut any parts of it up then obviously it's no longer sealed from the air and it's time to get it into the fridge or the freezer or get it cooked. If you use up half a squash or a pumpkin and you refrigerate the rest it's worth taking the seeds and wet stringy bits out of the middle before storing it as it's easier for those bits to go slimy because they're wetter and they have more surface area.
You can keep the seeds and you can either roast them or freeze them. Pop the rest of the squash or pumpkin in the fridge with either something to cover up the cut sides or in a tupperware and that will buy you about a week or get it into the freezer if it's not going to get used up within about a week. And speaking of freezing, you can also absolutely freeze both raw and cooked squash. I had the regular monthly chat with the lovely Kate Hall from The Full Freezer about how to freeze pumpkins and squash and we'll hear that interview now.
Joanne (05:24)
So Kate, October is pumpkin, our character is pumpkin. And obviously there's a lot of winter squashes that are coming out of the garden now and are available quite cheaply in the shops. So if you've either bought some butternut squash or you've carved your pumpkin at the end of this month, what would you then do to freeze that pumpkin?
Kate (05:42)
So personally, I like to keep it really simple and I will carve out the sort of flesh of the pumpkin and everything and I will either just freeze it as it is. So you can blanch it if you're going to be freezing it for long time, just for a minute or two, depending on the size of the cubes. And the blanching process is literally just popping your veg into a pan of boiling water, allowing it to cook for that minute or so, and then moving it to a bowl of ice water to stop it from cooking. That just deactivates any enzymes that will degrade the quality of the food, whilst it's in there So you can either, you can do that, but personally, I would just dice it up and freeze it as it is, just line it out on a tray so the pieces aren't touching each other. And then that can just be roasted from frozen you could pan fry some bits and pieces, but to me roasting is a really good solution. I would also really like to flag up that it's a really great way to save the seeds as well. So you can freeze seeds.
Joanne (06:51)
And you don't have to roast them first you can freeze them raw?
Kate (06:53)
You don't have to roast them first. If you want to roast them first, can. And much the same, if you wanted to roast the flesh or if you wanted to make puree or something, you can absolutely do that and then freeze it. ⁓ But yeah, the seeds, you can just get them out, clean them off so that they are really clean and then just pop them in a freezer bag. And then whenever you want to do some toasted pumpkin seeds, you can just grab a handful out of the freezer and just roast them straight from frozen. It's really convenient.
Joanne (07:23)
That's a brilliant tip. I did not know that. That's really cool. So on our website, we've got information about how to save the seeds and reuse things, but I have not got freeze them raw in that list of tips. So I'll be updating that.
Kate (07:37)
Fantastic. And yeah, I do have a post about pumpkins. I think on my "can I freeze it?" and I've certainly got something in my main Full Freezer.
Joanne (07:46)
We'll get the we'll get the links to that and pop it in the show notes.
Kate (07:50)
Fantastic. Thanks so much.
Joanne Roach (07:56)
So that's freezing. For the listeners that are into dehydrating foods, I know I normally cover that, you can absolutely dehydrate squashes, but think about what you'll use them for when you rehydrate them, or are you just storing things for storing it's sake? You can add dried squash cubes to curries and stews, but the texture is normally little chewier than from fresh. I do dry some when I've run out of freezer space and when I come to use them I put the pieces in the blender to make a powder which I then add into soups and stews as bit of extra nutrition and fibre but I don't tend to dry a lot of them, I prefer them in recipes from the freezer if I'm honest but give it a try if you like it and see what you think.
One other way to store pumpkin in particular is to make puree from cooked pumpkin pieces and then freeze it it's less dense than the canned stuff that you buy in America so you have to adjust American recipes a little or reduce the liquid down a bit first but it is useful in lots of recipes in the same way that apple sauce is for making things sweeter and moister so if you fancy doing this then google some recipes for fresh pumpkin puree make sure you put the fresh in the search to get the right texture. And once you've made your puree you can freeze it in bags or I freeze mine in little jars. I find that old salsa jars are roughly one cup measure and a medium mayo or jam jar is about two cups worth.
Okay, so we've stored our squash and pumpkin and now we have some to use up. What can you use either leftover pumpkin in or leftover butternut? So the obvious answer that comes to mind is soup. Either a soup where the squash is the star or just adding it into other things to thicken and sweeten it. Either add cubes at the start to melt away or use puree as mentioned above. I like to mix carrots and squash together because I find the mix is better than either of them separate. You can also add red lentils for some protein. I'll link to a recipe in the show notes for something like this. This combo is also great for red Thai curries and red Thai curry soup. Again I'll find a recipe for you. You can also add squash cubes to meat stews and curries to make the meat sauce go further. Squash or pumpkin is great with beef or lamb.
In a recent episode I talked about things you can add to foods to up the fruit and veg content and squash was mentioned several times to be added into quite a few things, either grated or pureed, such as pasta sauce, particularly mac and cheese, bolognese, soup, cakes and even things like nuggets and meatballs. I'll link to that episode in the show notes as there are quite a lot of recipe suggestions both in that episode and in the show notes for that episode.
Pumpkin is great as an ingredient for baking and I'll link in the show notes here to a recipe for a cake that uses fresh pumpkin and has a similar texture and taste to a carrot cake as well as a cookies recipe and even a no-bake pumpkin cheesecake.
So that's my roundup on storing and using up pumpkin. I'll pop some links to Kate's videos on freezing pumpkin in the show notes along with some of the recipes I mentioned. I'll see you on Monday for another episode and in the meantime, happy eating!
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