The Delicious Death of Frau Dietz’s Pumpkin

Pumpkins are serious business in Germany.  Unlike in Australia where pumpkins are available all year around, in Germany they are only available for about 1-2 months. Therefore pumpkin season is eagerly awaited by everyone but none so more than me as I haven’t had any pumpkin, in any form, for over a year.  Therefore, I was upset when my fellow expats spread throughout Germany started talking about all the pumpkins that had appeared in their local supermarkets whilst my local supermarket remained stubbornly pumpkin-free.

However, Frau Dietz came to my rescue and brought with her all the way to Köln, to where WEBMU was being held, a gorgeous little pumpkin for me.  I proudly carried the pumpkin all the way back to Hamburg and it has had pride of place on my windowsill for the past two weeks.

Doesn't it look gorgeous?

However, this weekend, since I was home for more than a few seconds, it was time to carve up and cook the beloved pumpkin.

The first cut is always the deepest

After a heroic effort and quite a lot of swearing, I managed to cut the damn thing in half.

It was a rather Herculean effort

I then scooped all the seeds out and saved them in bowl to roast them later. No part of this pumpkin was going to go to waste.

After cutting all the skin off and cutting up the pumpkin into the pieces, it was ready to place in the oven and to wait impatiently until it had cooked.

The Before Photo

After the longest 45 minutes of my life, the pumpkin was roasted to perfection and ready to eat.

The After Photo

The first bite of roasted pumpkin in over a year was just heavenly.  It took all my willpower not to eat the entire tray in one sitting.  But I was very good and only ate a few pieces.  The rest is now in the fridge ready to add to stews and soups throughout the week.

Next up it was the pumpkin seeds turn to be transformed into tasty goodness. I’ve never roasted my own pumpkin seeds before, but I was eager to learn a new skill, so I went to the internet and googled ‘roasting pumpkin seeds’ and followed the most simplest recipe I could find.  What the recipe failed to mentioned is just how time consuming it is to wash and clean those blasted seeds.

However they do look awesome floating in water

After taking what felt like forever to get them clean, it was time to dry and roast the seeds

Pumpkin seeds ready for roasting

I basted the seeds in melted butter and salt and then stirring them every 5 minutes, they were a gorgeous golden brown in 30 minutes.

Yum!

All up it took 4 hours of preparation and baking to turn Frau Dietz’s pumpkin into roasted pumpkin chucks and roasted pumpkin seeds. However, I now have lots of pumpkin yummy goodness to see me well into next week and beyond.

A big thanks to Frau Dietz for providing me with such a lovely pumpkin and thus allowing me to spend an overcast Saturday afternoon in the kitchen making such gorgeous food.