Its pumpkin pie season! Ev'rybody gotta have that pumpkin pie. Its on every list for the Thanksgiving feast. Its on all the Starbucks frappuccino menus. Its on Martha Stewart, the Today Show, Rachel Ray, and Shape magazine. Breweries make their own pumpkin ale. Everybody has their own twist.
My husband's best friend has an annual gig helping out at a local pumpkin patch down in Santa Barbara. When he and his lovely wife came up to visit us a couple of weeks ago, they brought us some pumpkins: a Sugar Baby, a Blue, several Jack-Be-Littles and some gourds. It was for my Fall table display, they said. I could put little tea lights in the Jack-Be-Littles...maybe. But I am not entertaining this year. Its for dessert, I thought!
Our roommmate had his eye on the Sugar Baby. He would be making a pie this year for his girlfriend's family. Okay, so I will use the Blue. Never had a blue pumpkin before. I wonder if it will taste any different?
Well, probably. When I cut them in half today to roast them in the oven, the Sugar Baby looked just like a pumpkin inside: a nice orange color with a 2 inch thick pulp and a bunch of seeds. I scooped them out and separated them from the gooey strings. Those seeds could be salted and roasted and eaten as a nice snack. Then I cut open the Blue. The cavity was very small, as the pulp filled up the space, leaving only about a baseball sided inside hole, and a dense bit of stringy stuff where the seeds were attached. Hmmmm...it looked more like a regular squash, a butternut-type, inside.
I baked them both together in the oven for one hour, until I could stick a fork in them. Then I took out the pans and let the pumpkins cool on top of the stove for another hour before touching them. I got a large serving spoon and scooped out all of the pulp into two separate bowls. The Sugar Baby was dense and stringy and a little dry in texture, while the Blue was moist, more squishy and not stringy at all. I was tempted to just mix the two together, but I think I will get the roommate's input first. But I am thinking the moistness of the Blue might balance out the dryness of the Sugar Baby very nicely and give them both better texture. From there, we can make two different pies and see who's comes out best!
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