Fall is my favorite season. The days are still relatively long, the light is warm, the nights are cool, and the kitchen becomes inviting once more. It’s Amaya’s first fall, and we are enjoying every moment. Peanut pumpkins are abundant in our neck of the woods, and combined with our new smoker, they are a beautiful thing.
Our technique of whole roasting was born of my personal frustration: trying to cut into large pumpkins and squash. I never could get efficient leverage (let’s face it, I’m vertically challenged), and it always felt as though I was risking life and limb to cut them into usable portions for cooking. So one day, I popped a whole one into the oven to see what would happen. I knew enough from baking potatoes to cut a few vents into the skin, but that’s all I did.
The results were amazing. The skin peeled away easily after cooking, and the squash, while needing salt, was amazingly rich and flavorful. We never looked back. It’s a great technique that easily works in an oven or on a judiciously heated grill. The results of cooking the pumpkin in its skin are everything you’d expect and more. Try it, and you’ll be a believer too.
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