Pumpkin puree: tasty and healthy

Pumpkin is a very useful vegetable that contains a lot of vitamins and microelements. It can be eaten raw and processed, served as a garnish to meat, used for making desserts and other recipes. Moreover, the pumpkin is a low-calorie product, why it is often included in diets.

By the way, whether a vegetable is a fruit or a berry, there are differences of opinion among scientists. As a rule, most people call a pumpkin a vegetable, but from a scientific point of view it's still a berry.

Season of pumpkin ripening is autumn. It is in autumn that the housewives begin to harvest the pumpkin for the winter and prepare a lot of delicious dishes. One of them is pumpkin puree.

The Benefits of Pumpkins

And how useful is this vegetable? Why is he so praised? The use of the product is undeniable. It's just a storehouse of vitamins and minerals. Just look at their kit: vitamins A, B, P, PP, E and C. Particularly is the content of vitamin T in it, which improves metabolism and prevents obesity.

The main minerals that contain pumpkin: potassium, magnesium, copper, zinc, calcium, fluorine, phosphorus and sulfur. Also pumpkin flesh is rich in iron, pectin substances and beta-carotene. It is worth noting that only 100 grams of pumpkin contain a daily rate of beta-carotene for a child.

What should be the pumpkin for puree

For a product such as pumpkin puree, pumpkin should choose a ripe. Of course, in a supermarket you can not try a vegetable, so you need to be able to choose it in appearance. Here are some tips on how to choose the right pumpkin for puree:

• The vegetable should be round or oval and medium in size;
• Weight - about 3-5 kilograms;
• The rind of the ripe pumpkin will be dense, covered with natural wax;
• Note that the tail will be dry and dark;
• If the pumpkin is cut, the color of the pulp should be bright orange or yellow:
• In a ripe pumpkin will be ripe seeds.

How to bake a pumpkin for puree

Typically, for pumpkin puree, the vegetable is pre-baked in the oven. Before baking, you must turn on the oven at a temperature of 180 to 250 degrees (depending on the size of the vegetable). Pumpkin puree is prepared very quickly. And after baking, the vegetable will still need to be cut into cubes, so it is not so important in what form it will be baked.

While the oven is heating, my vegetable and cut it in half. This is necessary in order to clear the middle of the seeds.

By the way, pumpkin seeds are also a very useful product, so we recommend rinsing them from the pulp and leaving to dry.

The pumpkin, freed from seeds, does not need to be peeled. You can send it to the oven in half cut, or you can cut each half into 3-4 parts.

Spread a baking sheet with foil or parchment paper and place a pumpkin on it. After you can send to the oven for an hour and a half. From time to time, check that the pumpkin is ready with a fork. When the product becomes very soft, you can remove it from the oven. Give the pumpkin time to cool, then remove from its parts the peel and grind into medium-sized cubes.

How to cook pumpkin puree

When the baked pumpkin has cooled down and is completely ready for further processing, the matter remains for a small one. Now you can cook pumpkin puree. The recipe is very simple. For mashed potatoes we take a blender and portion the pumkin. Add salt or pepper to taste. Then it is necessary to put the mashed potatoes in sealed containers (jars, for example) so that it is stored longer.

Pumpkin puree with cream is prepared in the same way as a normal product, the only difference is that additional cream is added to it. This is an excellent basis for pumpkin puree, the variations of which can be numerous.