Green Pumpkin Recipe, Last Harvest Chicken Soup

Since we have had a few frosts that mainly affected the tender pumpkins and squashes, I have chickened out and picked all the tender vegetables from the garden. This time of year you truly play a game of chicken with the last tender tomatoes and peppers and the first freeze. When will it be? Do I want all those green tomatoes in my house or can I wait a bit longer and let some of them ripen? If you wait too long and get caught by a freeze you will lose them all. (Not really because you can go ahead and make green tomato relish right away. The green tomatoes just wont keep and ripen if they have been touched with freezing, they will quickly rot in your house, so you really do want to get them before freezing weather.) Other vegetables like cabbage and broccoli can be left in the garden here in North Texas for a good while longer as our freezes usually only dip a few degrees below 32 over night.

The tomatoes green and red, the peppers, cucumbers and squashes are all safely in my house now waiting for me to decide what to do with them. Most of the broccoli has been picked and eaten. The cabbages, Brussels sprouts, carrots and mustard greens will be fine in the garden for now, but what about all those green unripened pumpkins sitting out there on their shriveled vines?

I wasn't sure of you could eat a green pumpkin so I did some research on line. I found out two things. The light green pumpkins that still had soft skin could be eaten just like any other squash. The dark green pumpkins with hard skins were fully mature and would turn orange if they got enough sun. One site suggested that you pick the green pumpkins and put them in a sunny dry place, such as a porch, while another site said you could leave them in the garden as long as it didn't freeze hard. Since that end of the garden tends to be wet I decided to pick my green pumpkins. Of course since last night was supposed to be the first freeze I had to bring them inside for the night - I am over run!

Green Pumpkin Stir-fry
Soft skinned small green pumpkins cut up. Do not skin or seed.
Several onions cut up in rings.
butter
Olive oil
Cinnamon
Salt and pepper

Add olive oil, butter and onions to a large frying pan. Cook on medium heat stirring frequently until onions are translucent. Add the cut up green pumpkin and spices. Cook stirring frequently until pumpkin is tender.


Last Harvest Chicken soup

Its really hard to go wrong with soup. You dont really need a recipe - just start with good broth and add whatever you have on hand.

I started with a whole chicken and boiled it up in a big pot. We had half the chicken for one dinner, then the pot was put in the fridge overnight. Next day the solidified fat was removed from the top of the pot and the rest of the chicken was de-boned. This gave about half a pot full of good broth and chicken. To that was added the last butternut squash picked from the garden along with several of the last green peppers. This was allowed to simmer until the squash was getting soft. I added water if the soup was reducing too much. Next I added some of the last broccoli, about four or five tomatoes rescued before the frost (skinned by poking them with a fork and dipping them in the boiling soup for 10 seconds. The skin comes right off), and a good two handfuls of chopped mustard greens. I added salt and pepper and Cumin. This was served as soon as the broccoli and mustard greens were soft. It was delicious.