pumpkin harvest

I've been agonising for about a few weeks over my pumpkins, wondering if they're ripe or if I'm meant to leave them for longer.  Now it's the night before we fly to the US for two weeks, and I still faced the dilemma: to harvest the ripest one or to leave it?  What if I left it and it's left too long and rotted?  If I pick it, you're meant to "cure it" by leaving it in the sun for a few days before storing ... but I wouldn't want to impose on our house sitters to worry about that.

And so I decided on the third option.  I picked the ripest one, chopped it up and ate it!  At long last.

It is such a beautiful little pumpkin!  Well not really that little, it still weighed several kilos.  It's certainly bigger than my goal of "small enough for meat to eat it all in one go."


And look at all of that rich, thick flesh and fat little seeds.  It actually was just shy of ripe, some of the seeds were a tiny bit green at the base and I saw one hint of green through some of the flesh.  Ah well, now I know better for next time, and I certainly didn't pick it too early (unlike the continued miscalculations with the figs).

I chopped up about 1/3 of it and roasted it with a bit of garlic, sage and rosemary.  I toasted up some garlic bread and cracked open a cold cider to go with it.  A lovely autumnal dinner, even if it isn't autumn yet.

The texture once roasted was incredibly light and fluffy inside, and savoury rather than sweet (which I prefer in a pumpkin). However it wasn't a very rich flavour, but that may be because it picked a smidge early and not cured, I hear that the flavour improves after a bit of storage.  I'll be able to find out after I get back!

And in the meantime, I hope my house sitters like pumpkin ...