The 2012 Pumpkin Party

It is that pumpkin time of the year, the stores and markets are full of all these interesting varieties and everyone in the neighborhood has one on their steps or front porches.  The annual Peralta Pumpkin Party has begun and was celebrated with lots of excitement and fun.  It starts off every year with trying to draw and paint all these amazing objects, after trying our best to get them down on paper then it is time to see if we can cook them into delicious dishes.  Why pumpkins?  They are nutritious, delicious and currently in season.  

Watercolor painting a Kaboucha Squash in the third grade

The Peralta Pumpkin Patch,  every student gets a pumpkin

Roasted squashes
These are roasted Sugar Pie Pumpkin, Butternut Squash, Kaboucha Squash and Marina di Chiogga.  To learn more about the Marina di Chiogga go to this link - http://rareseeds.com/marina-di-chioggia-squash.htm

To roast squash or pumpkins in the oven cut them in half and scoop out the seeds and mush, rub them all over with oil and then roast in a 350 degree oven until they are soft, it can take a while depending on the size of the squash 30 to 90 minutes.

Pumpkin Cake 

Pumpkin Cake made by Kindergarten
 

For the last few years I have been trying to make a dependable and easy pumpkin cake that doesn't use too many eggs.  This recipe seems about right, we made several batches of it and everyone seemed to like it.  It smells great when it is cooking, the classrooms at school were filled with this wonderful aroma.  Warm cake right out of the oven is typically delicious but I noticed that the leftovers were still being eaten by the teachers the next day so it was at least decent.

Pumpkin Cake

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger

½ - 2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

½ cup vegetable oil

11/2 cups roasted mashed pumpkin            

Bake at 350 for about 20 - 25 minutes until done.  

At school I baked these in a convection oven so a conventional oven might be a different amount of time.  If you make this at home you might want to put the roasted pumpkin in a food processor, at school I gave the students a fork and told them to mash it really well and if they had enough time it was very smooth.

In the kindergarten classes we added 1 or 2 grated apples which I thought made the cake better.  

We also made these with gluten free flour and also made one batch that was gluten free and egg free, using egg substitute and water instead of eggs

Second grade writing in their science journals about making pumpkin cake

After School Cooking Class on Halloween

Making cheese fingers on Halloween

Cheese fingers and bloody squash guts

What Pumpkin Makes the Best Pie?

The Contenders

Every year we try different pumpkins and squashes in a pumpkin pie bar to see which one makes the best pie.  This year we compared Marina di Chiogga, Sugar Pie and Kaboucha.

Two years in a row the winner has been Kaboucha Squash, closely followed by Marinna di Chiogga and then not too far behind was Sugar Pie.  They are all good choices but according to these fourth graders Kaboucha is the best.

Charting the Winner

The recipe that we used was from Cooks.com.  We made a few changes by using all oats to make it gluten free and using less crust and finally substituting half and half for evaporated milk and possibly adding some extra pumpkin but this recipe is dependable enough to modify a bit.  http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1937,159169-248206,00.html

Spaghetti Squash Salad with a first grade class

1st graders making Spaghetti Squash Salad

I may never eat pasta again - spaghetti squash has one fifth the calories and is delicious. We made a salad with it in the after school cooking class as well as one of the first grade classes. I had two spaghetti squash, generously donated by Pican Restaurant in Oakland, which I cut in half and scooped out the seeds which we roasted.  I steamed the squash with the peel on until it was tender.   Cooking with kids is not a very precise or controlled activity and the amount we made was enough for the entire class so I can't exactly remember the amounts of anything that we used therefore these are estimates - you should make this to your taste.

1 spaghetti squash steamed and cooled

2 cups chopped tomatoes

1 chopped English cucumber

1 handful of chopped basil

1 handful of chopped mint

grated Parmesan cheese - about 1 cup

salt to taste 

olive oil

Mix it all up, you could add other vegetables or other herbs, recipes that I saw online used feta cheese, capers, lemon juice or peppers.  

Spaghetti Squash has about 40 calories in 1 cup compared to about 200 calories for a cup of pasta.

Making Pumpkin Butter in a Third Grade Class