Our long growing season in Las Vegas means I had a ripe pumpkin in late July. When the rind was hard (it didn’t indent when I pressed my nail into it), I cut it leaving a 3-4 inch stem. I placed the pumpkin on my dining table, until I had time to find a darker place for it. Days passed, as they do when you procrastinate.
Pumpkin (prior to greening) and more harvested on July 31st
And then I noticed it. Dark green splotches on my bright orange pumpkin. Was it not ripe when I cut it from the vine? Was it rotting from the inside? Was it diseased? Did I get a photo?
No. But from what I can ascertain, a fully ripe pumpkin turning green is just something that happens sometimes; a reverse of its photosynthesis, although I couldn’t quite find out why. (Although I do have theories: a reversion to a childhood state indicates a need for psychotherapy.) Most likely it happened from being cut from the vine but still exposed to small amounts of sunlight on my dining room table.
Just to be certain it wasn’t going to go bad (it was the only pumpkin we got from our vines and I didn’t want to risk losing it), I decided to forego the common sense technique of storing the dang thing in the dark to see if it changed back and processed it for freezing instead. That I got a picture of!
I cut the pumpkin into giant chunks, removed the seeds and stringy parts, and boiled the pieces until they were soft. Then I removed the rinds, blended the pulp until it was smooth and froze them in the amounts needed for my Spiced Pumpkin Bread. Next time, I’ll remember to hide the pumpkin in the dark in the first place and save myself a lot of unnecessary work!
One pumpkin yielded 5 cups of puree
Tara’s Spiced Pumpkin Bread
This is my own recipe, can you believe it? Cooking may not be my strong point but I do love to bake. And I could live off this bread. It’s so goooood!
- 3 cups of organic sugar (I’ve used 2 cups when I was running low and couldn’t tell the difference)
- 1 cup olive oil
- 3 eggs
- 2 cups of pumpkin puree
- 3 cups of flour (I’ve used whole wheat, white wheat and all-purpose)
- 1 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup of raisins
1. Preheat over to 350 degrees
2. Butter/oil/grease and flour two bread pans
3. In a large bowl, beat sugar and oil.
4. Mix in the eggs and pumpkin puree. Sift in flour, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, salt and baking powder and mix well. Stir in raisins.
6. Pour into pans, filling them about 2/3’s full. Bake for 45-60 minutes (I have no idea why it varies so much but it does. Every time.)
I like to devour the slices warm with melted butter. Mmmmm…
Who else is happy baking season is upon us? 🙂
Tara blogs more about her garden, family
and occasional kitchen successes at TheOrganicSister.
Can’t say that I’ve ever heard about the reversal to green. Where did you learn that that happens sometimes?
Oranges will turn back to green a while after being harvested, if they aren’t treated against it.
jack – I googled the crap out of it. Couldn’t find anything conclusive, just a handful of experiences. I was hoping to find info from a cooperative extension but no luck.
Gretchen, what do you mean treated against it? Ours started turning green after just a few days (5 days maybe?). I’ve never heard of treating a pumpkin so I’d be interested to learn more.
~Tara
Probably oranges differ in many ways from pumpkins, but my father was an orange grower, and the rinds on the fruit that he kept at home for a few months naturally reverted to green. I don’t know how long it took for that to happen. The packing houses use some kind of gas in storage to prevent this. The re-greening doesn’t affect the juicy fruit inside, but it is off-putting to the customers in the stores.
Aah, I misread your previous comment. Interesting to know about *oranges*. Probably something similar then with pumpkins.
~Tara
Of course you toasted the pumpkin seeds (lightly salting of course) and ate them while watching a great movie right?!
😀
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The pumpkin seeds are the hubby’s fave!
When you bring home a green pumpkin, the sun turns it orange. That would is strange if it does the opposite.
Mine did the same, I bought this beautiful pumpkin and i noticed the other day all of the green splotches on the front. On the back side of the moon however, there were none. So, i noticed that it was in range of getting some sun during the day. I turned it around, so maybe the back(now front) will get spots?
Ill get back to you on my little experiment…
Ok so heres a before-ish shot. I noticed today that theres a bright orange spot (that was the color when I got it 2 weeks ago) now its turning dark orange on the side without the green spots, i hope it turns green soon.
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v731/deadtreehugger/pumpkin.jpg[/IMG]
And this is what the front turned into…
[IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v731/deadtreehugger/pumpkin2.jpg[/IMG]
My 2 year old son’s orange pumpkin has been slowing turning green over the past week- more in the back than the front. I turned it around and now the whole thing is green. It’s kind of upsetting him, but I’m very intrigued.
I bought 3 med. size pumpkins about 3 weeks ago. They had a few green flecks but I thought they would “finish ripening”. Nope. Their flecks have spread and the pumpkins are half green now. I had left them outside on the deck
in morning sun but now brought them in.,,took photos. I plan to use them for frozen pumpkin..pies, bread, cookies. They were not for jack-O-lantern. Happy Thanksgiving to anyone who sees this… I see you all wrote about this in 09. south Georgia
I heard that when you grow pumpkins, after picking, you leave them out in a semi sunny spot for a week or so then put then in a cool spot after that. It hardens them up so they will not rot. Sounds like your pumpkin was beginning to go south before it hardened up.