This week there will be corn, potatoes, yellow onions, sweet peppers, sugar pumpkins, kale, lettuce & 1 very large heirloom tomato in your share.

Don’t let that pumpkin sit around as decoration there are plenty more where they came from.

How To Make Pumpkin Puree

1 pie pumpkin

Preheat the oven to 350°. Cut off the top of the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkins in half. Then cut in quarters. Scoop out the seeds, and save for roasted pumpkin seeds. Place pumpkin quarters on a baking dish and bake in the oven for about 45 – 50 minutes, until pumpkin flesh is soft if you pierce it with a knife. Remove from the oven, and when cool enough to handle, remove the skin. This will come off easily. Discard the skin and place pumpkin in a food processor. Puree until smooth, adding water if necessary by the tablespoon. Pumpkin puree can be put in refrigerator or freezer to use in any recipe where canned pumpkin is called for.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds

Clean the seeds. The annoying-but-necessary task is that you have to meticulously clean the seeds until there are no signs of pumpkin guts. After picking off the strands, give them a GOOD rinse with water in a colander. Add the pumpkin seeds to a medium-sized pot of water along with 1 tsp salt. Bring it to a boil and reduce the heat to simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes over low-medium heat. Drain the seeds in a colander and dry lightly with a paper towel or tea towel. The seeds will stick to the towel, but just rub them off with your fingers. Don’t worry, they don’t have to be bone dry – just a light pat down. Spread seeds onto a baking sheet and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil (I only needed to use about 1/2-1 tsp). Massage oil into seeds and add a generous sprinkle of fine grain sea salt. Try to spread out the seeds as thin as possible with minor overlapping. Roast seeds at 325F for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and stir. Roast for another 8-10 minutes (if your oven temp is off, this could vary a lot!). During the last 5 minutes of roasting, remove a few seeds and crack open to make sure the inner seeds are not burning (you don’t want the inner seed brown). Cool a couple and pop them into your mouth to test. They are ready when the shell is super crispy and easy to bite through. The inner seed should have only a hint of golden tinge to it. They should not be brown.

Maple Pumpkin Pie

1 single pie crust, store bought or homemade, fit into a 9 inch pie plate
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups pumpkin puree
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves or 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place pie plate on a lined baking sheet. In a mixing bowl, combine eggs, pumpkin puree, heavy cream, maple syrup, spices and salt. Whisk well. Pour this mixture into the pie crust and bake for 60 to 70 minutes, or until center is set. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. Serve at room temperature.