Battle Axe

[ATTACH=CONFIG]603030[/ATTACH]Is this one big enough? No it's not mine. Mine is the tiny 34 pounder just to the left of this 719 pound. I love to raise these along with piecing the quilts.

These are from the Atlantic Giant pumpkin seeds that I bought over the internet. This was my second "weigh-in". The first one I attended in Iowa and it snapped me out of a deep depression. The baby had died and my husband ?? (legal husband only) had abandonded me. I heard about this contest on the radio and just the thought of belonging to a positive group brought my out of the depression.

These are the neighbor kids. I gave them two seeds and they raised one pumpkin, weighed 86 pounds and they won 5th prize.

Battle Axe

[ATTACH=CONFIG]603032[/ATTACH]This is a poor shot of all of the entries. The kids raised the first one in line. I raised the next two and professionals raised all the rest. They gave us some good tips on how to fertilize them. I don't think they would be good in pies, better stick with the little pie pumpkins with the natural sugar in them.

Feather3

You can order canned pumpkin from Amazon in the UK:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Libbys-100-.../dp/B0005ZYSIA

sewbizgirl

In America we can buy the big carving pumpkins, or small ones called "pie pumpkins" for baking. The small ones are anywhere from 6" across to just smaller than a soccer ball.

The "pumpkin" in cans is not actually pumpkin, but a variety of squash with less water content, and colored like pumpkin.

I've heard those enormous pumpkins like Battle Axe showed are also a variety of squash, and not pumpkin. Don't know how accurate that is!

My daughter lived in England for 8 years, and when she came home was always bringing back canned "pumpkin" and pumpkin pie spice, so she could cook American Thanksgiving in England for her friends. They loved it.

Battle Axe

Some are squash and some are pumpkins as there is a tendency to have an orange pumpkin and not a green squash. I think the squashes are more developed into the giants phase. It's just a lot of fun and gets me out of the house when I get stuck on some quilting instruction.

Moira in N.E. England

Battle Axe - those pumpkins are amazing!

Thank you everyone for you help. I manage to but a smallish pumpkin today so hope to make the soup this weekend.

maviskw

I have made notes on my recipes when they ask for 5 or 6 apples, half an onion or 3 carrots. Some of my onions make two cups and sometimes I need two onions to make a half cup. Sometimes I would need 25 to 50 carrots to make a cake. And those little ones do work as I make my carrot cake in the blender. I need 4.5 cups of carrot pieces, so it doesn't matter how big the carrots are. That is a very good way to use those little buggers.

Darcyshannon

Another idea is to find a similar recipe that gives information in exact measurements and use that amount in your recipe.

Darcyshannon

Either canned pumpkin (used a lot because easier) or cooked sugar or pie pumpkins.

Darcyshannon

As others said, often sweet varieties of squash are used. Butternut squash being a common replacement.