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I grew pumpkins one year specifically so that I could make my own pies from scratch. I researched the best variety to grow, tended the vines until they were perfect, cleaned and cooked and spiced the flesh, and finally baked it into a beautiful perfect pie --- that tasted exactly like the canned pumpkin pie.

I will never use fresh pumpkin again.

The seeds were delicious though.

LOL mlle, i am annoyed to hear that considering I now live in a country where canned pumpkin is unheard of. In fact, they usually only grow squash to make oil from the roasted seeds and feed the rest of it to the pigs. It's insanity!

mlle...I'd say the same thing about pumpkin. I've had HUGE success with butternut squash though. I roast a butternut squash in a little brown sugar, butter and orange juice mix and then puree it and substitute it for pumpkin puree and it's amazing. I've had people who swear they hate pumpkin pie go back for a second piece when I swapped in the butternut squash.

No canned pumkin in the country? You've got to be waaaay out in the boondocks @jeangenie

Now I'd agree with you @King of Arcadia -- butternut and acorn squashes are totally worth growing. Mmmmm.

Oh-- whoops! you don't live in the country -- you live in a country. haha. my mistake

Apparently canned pumpkin is made from a type of pumpkin which is tan and has some similarity to the butternut squash, so you really don't get the same effects from fresh and from canned.

I've made the pumpkin cheesecake before, and it was delicious. Very rich though.

Oh dear, this doesn't give me much hope. I purchased my first sugar pumpkin last week with grand plans to make a pie out of it. Granted, it is still sitting in my pantry but after reading the above posts, I'm wondering if I should just open up a an of the stuff.

Tell me about it. I've been trying to muster the courage to make pumpkin curry for weeks now.

The only time I cook with fresh pumpkin is for Thanksgiving stuffing, which I bake in a pumpkin and serve with pieces of the flesh. Pumpkin and stuffing covered with turkey gravy, yum.

omg a friend of mine made pumpkin whoopie pies last year around this time and I nearly overdosed by eating about 6. They are irresistible. Seriously good, so long as there is someone there to stop you.

As far as I know, canned pumpkin doesn't exist in Australia. Butternuts do though, and they're yummy! Great comfort food soup: fry onion and optional bacon, add chopped raw pumpkin, maybe some potato, and stock or water, cook it down and puree. Maybe add cream. It's really good, thick and warming.

I'm actually kind of surprised that everyone on here uses canned rather than raw, simply because I've never used canned, and raw really isn't that hard to deal with. Less waste too, and you can compost the pumpkin scraps yourself, so you know for sure they're not just being landfilled. And there's something kind of satisfying about lugging home a good hefty pumpkin or two, with grand plans for turning it into something tasty :-)

Reading mlleErica's comment reminded me of when I was in college in England. There was one little shop I found that carried American foods (Saltines for example), and it was the only place I ever saw canned pumpkin. They sold out of Libby's before Thanksgiving, though (lots of other Americans must have made the same discovery), so I bought a couple jars of organic Japanese pumpkin puree. It was *delicious*, but the texture of the pie was terrible. And all my English friends thought the idea of pumpkin in a dessert was gross. :)

I've made this recipe for pumpkin, kale, and white bean ragout several times, and it's delicious and perfect! Though I've only ever made it with butternut squash, it calls for pumpkin.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/14/dining/141arex.html

it's a little work intensive (lots of leek trimming, kale washing, squash peeling and roasting, etc.), but completely worth it, in my opinion. everyone should make it!