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In autumn, harvesting pumpkins, gardeners often lay fruits for storage. Well-ripened squash, without cracks, scratches on the peel and with a carefully preserved petiole, lie, without spoiling, from three to 20 months. However, the shelf life depends not only on the condition of the fetus, but also on the variety. For example, pumpkin varieties "Stofuntovaya" or "Gribovskaya winter" can be stored until next summer, but the most delicious, sweet and fragrant Muscat will have to eat until the middle of winter. Yes, and not all squash are removed from the beds in perfect condition. On one - a trace from the beak of a neighbor's hen, and the other was without a dry tail.
In addition, there is one more problem. Cutting the fruit, weighing at times a lot of pounds, it is difficult to use it at a time. Useful properties and nutritional value of the pumpkin in a cut form, even in a refrigerator, is lost in a matter of hours.
In order not to condemn the family to a "pumpkin" diet, and at the same time to keep grown, you can make a variety of logs from pumpkins for the winter.
Rich in carotene and other beneficial substances, the flesh is the perfect base for savory snacks, convenience foods, from which in the cold season you can cook your favorite dishes, as well as treats for small and large sweet tooth.
How to freeze a pumpkin for the winter?
Preparing from the pumpkin blanks for the winter, the housewives try to choose such a recipe and the way in which the vegetable preserves the maximum benefit and all its features. Until recently, it was impossible to do without heat treatment or use of preservatives such as citric or acetic acid. Today nothing hinders in the same way as zucchini. squash, for a winter to freeze a pumpkin, and after a while to use in food a product as useful and tasty as a fresh fruit.
But how best to pump the pumpkin? There are several equally simple ways, the main thing is to decide in advance what the original semi-finished product will be used for:
- If the family has a small child, or the landlady likes to bake pumpkin pies, it is convenient to use the recipe with a photo where the pumpkin is frozen in the form of mashed potatoes for the winter.
- Gourmets wishing to pamper themselves with dietary spaghetti from a pumpkin of this class, can also freeze such a blanched flesh in a portion packs.
- The simplest way is to freeze the pumpkin for winter in the form of small cubes, which are added to cereals, used in vegetable garnishes, casseroles and pies.
Before using as a part of the blanks for the winter, the pumpkin is thoroughly washed, cut and cleaned from the fibrous core and seeds.
If you want to freeze the pumpkin cubes, then the prepared pieces up to 3 cm in size are immersed in boiling water for 2-3 minutes.
After that, the raw material is laid out on a baking sheet, dried and sent to the freezer, trying to keep the cubes from touching each other and sticking together. Hardened pumpkin is scattered over the closing bags or containers for later storage.
When preparing a semi-finished product for vegetable spaghetti, to break the flesh into fibers, the pumpkin cut into halves is best baked. After that, the cooled fibers are removed, laid out in a thin layer on a pallet and frozen.
If this way to freeze the pumpkin for the winter, you can not only eat a light nutritious side dish, but with spaghetti, make casseroles and fry pumpkin pancakes.
For harvesting for the winter pumpkins in the form of frozen puree, large pieces of fruit are laid on a baking sheet with bark downwards and sent to the oven. When, after 40 minutes, the pulp is softened at 180-190 ° C, the pumpkin is removed and cooled.
The extracted pulp is ground until the mass becomes homogeneous and airy. Then lay out on small packages or forms for freezing.
Bake a pumpkin can and in the form of small peeled cubes or lobules. In this case, the pan with the pulp should be covered with a layer of food foil. The preparation of a baked pumpkin will take from 20 minutes to half an hour.
Designed for baking pumpkin can be sprinkled with salt, cinnamon, sugar or other spices and spices to taste.
Frozen cubes are placed in tightly closed bags or containers, which are easy to place in the freezer.
Pickled pumpkin
A delicious piquant pumpkin snack can be done if the flesh is marinated. For such a billet of pumpkins for the winter, take a ripe fruit with a dense, but not coarse pulp. Pumpkin is washed, cleaned and cut into cubes, convenient for packing in cans.
Raw materials are blanched for 2-3 minutes, cooled and laid out on clean glass containers. On top of the pieces, the jars are filled with a marinade, made from the calculation that 1 liter of water goes:
- 30 grams of sugar;
- 20 grams of salt;
- 5-6 cloves and grains of sweet pepper;
- a small slice of cinnamon.
The mixture of spices in water is brought to a boil and kept on the fire for another 5 minutes, then 100 ml of 9% vinegar is added to the liquid.
If desired, a set of spices can be changed by adding to a marinade, for example, a sprig of rosemary, basil or lobules of ginger root.
Prepared in this way the pumpkin blank for the winter must be hermetically sealed with lids and sterilized.
Pumpkin caviar with vegetables
Useful and tasty vegetable caviar from pumpkin and other vegetables is a wonderful snack, and a light supplement to a more satisfying side dish from boiled potatoes.
For 1 kg of purified pumpkin pulp, take 500 grams of chopped carrots and 150 grams of chopped onions. Pumpkin is boiled for half an hour or baked for about 40 minutes at a temperature of 180 ° C, until the pulp is softened. At this time, chopped onions and carrots are fried in vegetable oil, adding salt, black pepper, paprika and spicy herbs to taste.
When the onion turns rosy, vegetables are removed from the fire and mixed with pumpkin. To obtain a homogeneous mass, use a blender or food processor. A ready-made pumpkin caviar, prepared for the winter, is spread over clean small cans, closed and sterilized.
Dried pumpkin - the original snack for lovers of vegetables
Drying, as well as freezing, allows to keep in the product all useful properties and taste.
Drying a pumpkin is not difficult, but the whole family, given the tastes and preferences of each household, will be provided with original chips.
For this delicacy is better to take a pumpkin with a dense homogeneous pulp, and the fruit may not be very sweet. In this case, you will get wonderful salted chips. If the pulp contains a lot of sugars, it is better to make a snack for children and adult sweet lovers:
- The fruit is washed and cleaned.
- Then, according to the recipe, as in the photo, the pumpkin for the winter billet is thinly cut into slices no more than 2-3 mm thick
- The resulting plates blanch a few minutes in boiling water, which, depending on the tastes of the household, salt or sugar is added.
- Slices taken from boiling water are cooled under a stream of cold water.
- Pumpkin is dried and laid out on a pallet.
To make the dried pumpkin tastier, before drying, the wet plates are flavored with spices and spices.
For such a pumpkin harvest for the winter, it is better to use an electric dryer in which slices are to be held for up to 6 hours at a temperature of 55-60 ° C. And then the chips are dried for another two hours, raising the temperature to 70-80 ° C.
Pumpkin Powder
If the mistress for the winter makes pumpkin juice, often a dense dehydrated puree, from which it is easy to prepare a useful powder containing a large amount of fiber, minerals and vitamins.
The special value of pumpkin powder is that it is simply stored, and from it, when water is added, a full-bodied puree is obtained. And besides, it is an amazing additive for homemade baking, which due to this will acquire an original taste and color.
If there is no ready mashed potatoes, it's easy to make. For this, the pumpkin is washed, cut and cleaned. Pulp, sliced into small cubes, boiled without salt and sugar for 10 to 20 minutes, and then rub through a sieve or grind in a blender. The resulting mashed potatoes, thinly spread out on parchment paper, are placed on a tray of a dryer or a baking tray for shipment to the oven.
At 135 ° C in the oven, the pumpkin dries in a few minutes, most importantly, do not allow the product to burn and constantly stir up the pulp. Dry mass is ground and scattered for storage on paper bags or glass jars.
Pumpkin preserves
Jam from a pumpkin - harvesting for the winter, which is one of the most popular and rightfully loved. However, because of the unpleasant taste of pumpkin, you can get a truly delicious product by adding citrus fruits, apples, dried apricots, quince, or other fruits to the jam.
On, kg of pumpkin pulp, cleared of bark and seeds, will require a couple of lemons or oranges, one apple and sugar syrup. To prepare it for 500 ml of water add 2 kg of sugar, the mixture is brought to a boil and removed from the fire.
- Pumpkin and fruit are washed, cleaned and chopped, and with lemon and orange should not peel.
- The fruits are poured with syrup, put the dishes on the fire and, removing the resulting foam, again bring the workpiece out of the pumpkin for the winter to a boil.
- To pieces of vegetables and fruits soaked with hot syrup, jam, removed from the fire, leave to insist.
- After 3-4 hours again bring to a boil, boil for five minutes and again forced to infuse.
- At the last cooking on the fire the boiled jam should be 5 -10 minutes, after which the product is poured into sterile jars and closed.
If desired, in the pumpkin jam, you can add nut kernels, which are pre-ground and cooked for about 40 minutes in sweet water.
Sweet harvest for the winter - pumpkin puree
Such mashed potatoes contain less sugar than jam, so it will be useful for adults and will certainly be to children's liking.
- For a kilogram of purified pumpkin pulp, you need to take 500 grams of apricots or peaches. Fruits are washed. Fruits are extracted from the fruit.
- Raw materials are ground in a blender and covered with sugar at a rate of 450 grams per kg of fruit.
- The future mashed potatoes on low heat until 2 o'clock, making sure that the dish is not burnt.
- A few minutes before the readiness to the mass, add a teaspoon of citric acid, puree thoroughly mixed.
A useful blank of pumpkin for the winter is laid out on clean sterile jars and sealed.
Candied pumpkin candies for the winter
The gourd washed and peeled from the peel and seeds is cut into thin slices or small cubes. Prepared pulp is filled with sugar syrup, which is prepared based on 200 ml of water per kg of sugar, 3 grams of citric acid and a pinch of vanilla.
To get a translucent candied sugar syrup candied fruit, in the photo, as in the recipe for pumpkin jam, the product is brought to a boil three or four times, left on fire for a few minutes, and then necessarily given to brew. After 5-7 hours the process is repeated. In this case, the pumpkin will retain its shape and density, but a magnificent honey taste is acquired. Harvested for winter, pumpkin slices are dried on a sieve and if desired, they are dumped in powdered sugar.
Ready-to-eat candied fruit is stored in a cool dry place. The best capacity is glass cans, closed with parchment.
