The Greener View: Pumpkin Substitutes

Q: I have a neighbor who says she gets a better "pumpkin" pie by using butternut squash. My squash vines grew a lot of fruit this year, and I was planning on storing some for the winter. I have had trouble getting pumpkins to grow in my garden, but the squash almost always produce a lot. If she is right, I may stop trying to grow pumpkins and just grow more squash. What do you think?

A: Your neighbor is right. Butternut and acorn squash do make good "pumpkin" pies. All pumpkins and several squash varieties can be used in pies, but the best pie pumpkins are small, sweet pumpkins without the watery and stringy consistency of jack-o-lantern pumpkins. The typical commercially processed pumpkin found in canned pumpkin is a tan colored squash shaped like a football, not at all like an orange jack-o-lantern pumpkin. If you can't find small pie pumpkins, you can use butternut and buttercup squash as an equal substitute for pumpkin in the recipe. Squash will be found at the grocery store for a longer time than pumpkins.

On the other hand, I don't think you will be carving or decorating your butternut squash for Halloween. Many people save the seeds from their pumpkins, and I don't think you will save the squash seeds for roasting.

Pumpkins and other squash are good sources of vitamins and are good to eat. They are a variety of winter squash like butternut and acorn squash. Winter squash are left on the vine until they are mature, have a hard rind and are usually baked for eating. Summer squash such as zucchini are picked off the vine while still green, have a soft rind and can be eaten raw or cooked. They do not store well and are eaten fresh.

Winter squash, such as pumpkins, can be stored at 50 degrees until next spring. For best storage, they should have a 3- or 4-inch piece of stem and should not have been exposed to a frost.

If you want to have a decorated pumpkin, but also save it for later eating, you can use tempera paint or markers to make your designs on the outside without cutting it open.

The rind is easily removed after boiling. Drain the pot and mash the pumpkin until it is soft; it can then be frozen. It will last for months. If you use fresh pumpkin in a recipe for pumpkin bread or pie, you will taste the difference and may not want to go back to the canned stuff.

Small pumpkins can be eaten as a vegetable: steamed, boiled or battered and fried, just like other squash. They can also be sliced and eaten raw with dip as an appetizer. The University of Illinois Extension's website www.urbanext.illinois.edu/pumpkins has information on how to select and cook fresh pumpkins. Besides the standard recipes for pumpkin nut bread and roasted pumpkin seeds, there are many other recipes, such as pumpkin cheesecake and pumpkin-apple soup.

You can save the seeds for planting next year with all the vine crops. The only problem is that many of the crops you purchase as plants in the spring or as seeds with named hybrid varieties will not come true from seed. In other words, the vines might have "kids" that don't look like the parents in the crop produced next year. If the seeds or plants were labeled as hybrids, you may get good crops and you may not. If the crop was labeled as an heirloom, you will get crops next year that match this year's crop if there were no other varieties nearby that could cross-pollinate your plants to produce the seeds you now have.

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Email questions to Jeff Rugg at info@greenerview.com. To find out more about Jeff Rugg and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.