The Pumpkin Adventure part one: Making purée.

 Today is first day of Vegan MoFo (Month of Food) and this year I will be participating for the first time.The idea is to put focus on vegan food by blogging intensely during a whole month, and everyone does it together.  There will be so many awesome bloggers participating and I can't wait to see what they will write about. Myself, I don't have an awesome theme, but I see this as a chance to get a kick-start on my blogging and also share some recipes and thought about being vegan in a very small northern place like the Faroe Islands. 

About 11 years ago, when I was 10, me and my grandmother went out to buy a pumpkin. Halloween was around the corner and we were making a Jack-O-Lantern. I had never made one before, so we had a really fun day together. I don't remember how it came out, but I do remember that we didn't use any of it for eating. We never ate pumpkin at home, and I don't think many of my friends did either. Pumpkin is almost only available in the supermarkets around Halloween, and I guess most people buy them for the same reason as my grandmother did 11 years ago, for making a fun decoration for some days and then throw it away. I've never seen canned pumpkin either. A lot of my cookbooks are American, and they all have recipes including pumpkin, and they often seems to be the most liked ones, but I've never gotten to try any.

Mr Pumpkin.

This year I was determined to buy a pumpkin and try them all (well, some at least). I've bided my time, seeing some small ones showing up in the supermarkets, and last Wednesday, just before Halloween, I bought a big one. I know that the small ones probably tastes better, but they sell everything per piece here, not by weight. So I decided to buy the biggest one.

I took it home and started thinking what I should do with it. After some research, it seemed like most recipes called for puréed pumpkin, so I decided to make a lot of it an freeze for later use. I used The Pioneer Womans method for this, I don't know if it's the common one or not, but it worked fine. You simply cut it up in big pieces, take away all the gooey stuff and the seeds and roast it for 45 minutes until soft. Then you peel it, and mix it. Done! In the end, I ended up with 15 plastic bags with a cup each inside them. They are now in the freezer, ready for all my upcoming baking adventures.

Of course, I coulcn't just put them all away. I had to bake something, and the obvious choice fell on the pumpkin muffins from Vegan With A Vengeance.  They were wonderful. I mean, amazing! Super moist, spicy and with a taste I didn't recognize. I guess that was the pumpkin! Anyway, I really enjoyed them, and I'm so much looking forward to all the other (14!) things I can make!