Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

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ChrisGreaves
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Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

Post by ChrisGreaves »

One thousand days ago today I spent the day on a ferry, the ferry being held upright by the weight of a 15-foot UHaul truck below decks, Three days later I contemplated a carton of twelve one-litre Mason jars of bottled pears which had frozen - doh! - en route. They thawed out just fine in a couple of days, and I ate them with no apparent ill-effects (apart from making me feel two years older).
Made me think.
Fresh on last year's two wheelbarrow loads of post-Halloween pumpkins from Kerry and from Debbie's place, I have been spreading the rumour that it is a tradition in this street to arrange for me to collect all the post-Halloween pumpkins. Which is why Megan dropped off four cartons of jars (so enough for 48 litres of pumpkin pulp) yesterday. Thanks Megan!
You have already guessed what I am going to do: I do not want to have 48 jars clogging up the kitchen, and an option is to store them out in the shed. The laundry room, held at 5c, is fully occupied by my root cellars.
So the 48 jars will freeze, as did the pears, and I shall bring them in two or three at a time, as needed.

I am not too worried, but thought to ask here if anyone who bottles has ever had their preserved food frozen, and suffered any ill-effects at all.

Thanks
Chris
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BobH
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Re: Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

Post by BobH »

Leave headroom for the water to expand as it freezes or your bottles will burst. DAMHIKT

BTW: This form of preserving food is known as 'canning' IME.
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

Post by ChrisGreaves »

BobH wrote:
29 Oct 2021, 21:56
Leave headroom for the water to expand as it freezes or your bottles will burst. DAMHIKT
Good point, and frankly I wasn't thinking straight when I tossed the cartons of bottled fruits, veges into the back of the truck.
FWIW the water will be held in the pulped pumpkin flesh, so it is a tad different from the chunks of pears in syrup (which, of course, has a lower freezing-point, which still didn't stop it freezing!)
BTW: This form of preserving food is known as 'canning' IME.
Not in the civilized world it isn't. Canning is what is done when stuff is put in cans.
My high school geography teachers Mr. deKurloi said, regarding salmon, of the residents of coast of British Columbia "they eat what they can and they can what they can't". I was given a tour of the North Pacific Cannery National Historic Site around 1998 on one of my trips to Prince Rupert. Fastinating[sic]

Cheers
Chris
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GeoffW
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Re: Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

Post by GeoffW »

On canning. My dad had a canning device when I was a kid. We grew up in a fruit growing area, and we would can the fruit, and he would turn a big handle to seal the lids on the cans, and then cook the cans in a big copper tub which used to be used for laundry back in the day.

Apparently the machine went to New Guinea, to be used in a village in the highlands.

My dad used to be a mechanic in the local fruit cannery - before he switched careers to become a bookseller.

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Freezing Preserved Pumpkin Pulp

Post by ChrisGreaves »

GeoffW wrote:
06 Nov 2021, 23:38
On canning. My dad had a canning device when I was a kid. ...
I continue to ponder that my mother did not can. In SX the farmers knew my dad had a small stipend, so Saturday afternoons the famers wives would drop by and leave lashings of fresh food. One Saturday - six dozen eggs EACH from two farmers. This for people who (in Lancashire) were still on powdered egg ten years after the war! Chickens (dressed and ready to cook), fruit, vegetables, two-gallon pails of milk. My job was to coat the googie-eggs in "Keep-Egg", a product which seems to have disappeared from Google's shelves ... The eggs were stored on the back porch, western-facing corrugated-iron walled mining house, and were used for baking and breakfast; they lasted for many weeks. In the backyard we had an apricot tree that outpaced us, and six grapevines ditto.
Bottling? ¡nada!

It was my wife (first marriage) who in the mid 70s (not hers!) started bottling, and she had learned that from her mother. I compared prices with the supermarket's prices of bottled fruit, jam etc and was hooked.
My dad used to be a mechanic in the local fruit cannery - before he switched careers to become a bookseller.
How very proud of him you all must have been when finally he got a Real Job ( :evilgrin: )
20211107_124805_HDR.jpg
Fourteen pumpkins ranging from 2 to 15+ pounds, and most of them large pumpkins; I am looking at 90+ pounds of pumpkin, and I still have to collect Caitlin's pumpkins.
This year I plan to:-
(1) Dry the skin and use it to boil-up ("reconstitute") as required. Or to splurge on several gallons of dip and NOT invite George Costanza.
(2) Rinse and dry the seeds then roast and grind them for coffee-substitute
(3) Render down the flesh in my lidded canning tub, but this year strain the pulp overnight. The liquor I will either use as vegetable broth or turn into a horribly-healthy drink, with a bit of ground black pepper added; or similar.
(4) Bottle the drained/strained flesh into one-litre jars.

That should keep me off the streets for a week or two.
Cheers
Chris
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