Some more info regarding two of Summer Week 18’s veggies …
Cooking with pie pumpkins
Baked goods made from real pumpkins have a simple, not-too-sweet flavor. To use your pumpkin, you’ll first need to cook the pumpkin meat. Here’s a simple easy method that doesn’t require chopping and peeling a raw pumpkin (a task we find a bit scary at moments):
Pop off the stem, poke a few slits in the top of the pumpkin with a knife, and then place the whole pumpkin on a cookie sheet into a 350° oven. Cook until the flesh is tender and soft (at that point, the skin might look slightly brown and burnt and be bubbling over, but that’s okay). Remove pumpkin from the oven and let cool on the counter or in the fridge. You can cut in half at this point to speed cooling. Once cooled enough that you can handle it without burning yourself, you should be able to peel off the skin (which will feel leathery) and pull the flesh apart in chunks. The seed cavity will also easily scoop out from the flesh. If you’re not using it immediately, you can store your cooked pumpkin in the fridge for use later in any recipe calling for canned pumpkin—simply mash or puree before use.
Here’s our favorite pumpkin recipe (besides pie, which we’ll provide a recipe for closer to Thanksgiving):
Chocolate chip pumpkin muffins
Sift together flour, salt, sugar, and baking soda. Mix pumpkin, oil, eggs, water, and cinnamon; then combine with dry ingredients, but do not mix too thoroughly. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour into well-oiled muffin tin. Bake at 350° for 15-25 minutes, until a knife comes out clean. Let sit for a minute out of oven, then turn out of pan to cool on a rack. Delicious cut in half and buttered or topped with whipped cream.
Popcorn information
We recommend letting your popcorn dry a little longer before trying to pop — the drier the better for effective popping. (The corn should dry fine anywhere you display it, as long as the space is moderately warm and dry, such as inside your house.) To prepare: you can pry the kernels off the cob and pop using any standard whole kernel method (stovetop, popcorn machine, etc.); or, you can cut off the husk, butter/oil the whole cob, stick in a brown paper bag, fold over the top, stick in the microwave, and then cook the way you would any bagged popcorn (on high until the sound of popping slows down).
