Pumpkin

I love pumpkin season for so many reasons.

But one big one is that I love pumpkin and squash of all varieties, and it's such a versatile, filling, low-calorie, nutritious food. In fact it's listed as a "superfood" although I find that designation a bit hokey. Regardless, today I was home in the afternoon, for a long period of time so I roasted a whole pumpkin, a whole cabbage but cut up, a bag of broccoli tips, and sauteed 3 bags of mushrooms and some pesto chicken. I made individual pizzas for my family, and put the chicken on Dave's. The pumpkin pictured is a "peanut pumpkin" as it looks like it has peanuts growing all over it.

Two hours later of roasting on 400, I have a huge bowl of pumpkin, and must figure out things to do with it. I did find this interesting web site....although I haven't tried any recipes yet. It seems like a great vegetarian resource.

So far I have eaten it "sliced" and with a tad of cinnamon, salt and the tiniest drizzle of real

maple syrup, as pictured, and added it to oatmeal. I love it plain and fibrous, or in my opinion al dente, although I realize the more traditional thing to do is puree it into baby-food consistency and add it to soups, stews, sauces, pancakes, muffins. I have about 10 cups so I should be able to do all of the above.

I can't get my kids to like it as pictured so I'll have to get creative.

I should be able to make some pumpkin muffins or pancakes pretty easily.

I will also freeze some, because even though there isn't much to making pumpkin aside from needing a good 2 hours of oven time, it is nice to have it all ready to go, especially for when pumpkins aren't so plentiful.