Ode to a Swedish Pumpkin

When fall rolls around, and you realize that you would really really really like to have pumpkin pie on the dessert table at your Thanksgiving feast, a girl does what she has to do….which is what we’ve been doing for all the years that we have lived abroad and outside of the USA.  No possibility to run to the grocery store here in Malmö (even to an ex-pat store that might sell some products from the USA or the UK) and purchase canned pumpkin.

Let’s buy a pumpkin!

There she be....the Swedish version of the pumpkin that will grace our Thanksgiving dessert table ~ our little friend who comes by often noticed right away the next time he came by and the pumpkin was no longer there in front of the house!

And then make pumpkin purée!

And then make pumpkin bread to share with all your friends from the Språkcafé (language café) who have never eaten pumpkin bread before!  Most of them have only known pumpkin in soup or as a roasted vegetable.

And then make pumpkin pie for those Thanksgiving dinner guests who will feast with us on Friday instead of Thursday (because, sadly enough, Thanksgiving on Thursday is only a holiday in the USA).

Step one (or step two, if you consider the purchase of the pumpkin as step one)...baking it up in chunks to make...

Step two...the purée!  And we have lots of it!

 

The turkey has been purchased and will come out of the freezer tomorrow.

The cranberries have been secured.  And trust us, that is no easy feat!  Although, a perk of living in Sweden is that we can always put a bowl of lingonberries on the table in a pinch.

Sweet potatoes will show up in two forms this year (Steve’s request): the traditional sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top (only because we happen to have some marshmallows in the cupboard, thanks to recent guests from the USA), and then sweet potatoes just roasted in the oven.

 

We will give thanks.

Because it’s a good thing.

And to give thanks every day is even better!

And the final product, which gets stored away until it's pumpkin pie day!

 

 

Enjoy your pumpkin pie ~ or whatever your Thanksgiving favorite dessert might just happen to be.

 

Thankful!