Love the pumpkin and cutie pie dog! I have that variety of pumpkin on display outside our front entry. It's been slowly turning orange, but I love when they're mostly green with some orange...just like your photo. I've never used this variety for baking/cooking.

I make lots of things from pumpkin, but ripe, so I'm just generalizing on that part, and I'm not sure what ”not quite there” means. Is it fully pumpkiny but not sweet enough? Sweet-ish but bland without yummy squashness? Sour or bitter?

I don't know a way to get pumpkiness in, but (duh) for sweetness add sugar. Sugar, molasses, maple syrup, carrots, sweet potatoes... I wouldn't do honey, but if you have some that seems to go with it, try it! More duh, a little sweet will enhance the flavor in savory dishes. A lot of sweet for pie. For cake or ice cream, there's probably enough sugar in a standard recipe, but taste the mix and add more if needed. Sugar can be like salt as a flavor enhancer, so will help with bland too.

If it's sour or bitter, sugar can also fix it up, but you'll need to taste along the way to find the balance point.

For meh, don't discount salt and pepper. They're so endemic because they do so much! Roasting will help get a lot of flavor in. Cut into planks, steaks or chunks—you can peel before or after, and don't worry about every shred of pumpkin guts. Both skins and guts come off easily when cooked. Coat with a liberal amount of tasty oil and just roast or broil on a baking sheet. You can season or wait. Don't worry if the exposed part looks dry while the color is developing, If your pumpkins behave like the ones I've roasted, it'll still be moist inside, and you can peel off the dry part or cut it in if you're going to mash it.

Let me know if you want recipes for pumpkin soups, lasagna, empanads, etc, Pumpkin usually only needs a bit of fat to bind, like butter or cheese. If the flesh seems watery, you can steam (cook) it out, press/strain it, or even cover losely and let the evaporator in your fridge have a go. You can fill anything from ravioli to dumplings to cupcakes that way. Plus, you can add the usual, like oats or breadcrumbs, to make balls, croquettes, crumbles, etc. That kind of thing I don't use recipes for, but I'm sure the group or the ’net has them.

Good luck!

Ooh pumpkin empanadas.

By meh I mean a little watery and not terribly sweet. I really like the almost chalky/creamy non fibrous texture of say Kabochas - of which I have many. This was a bit more fibrous and wet. I did drain it for awhile.

So part of my lack of enthusiam might be it not being a squash. I won’t know until I cut the really ripe one. But this variety is beloved in France which makes me assume the failure is the pumpkin itself.

soup!

Once it's good and cooked and made into something the fibrosity of jack-o’lantern pumpkins isn't really an issue. Maybe that would be true of yours. If you're puréeing you can also pulverize the fiber with a blender. Do try reducing the wet and seasoning. It might not work, but it could help. Still, while I've only cooked 5-6 varieties of pumpkin, they've all tasted pumpkiny, and not like other winter squash. There's a kind of funky undertone and a touch of bitterness. Kabocha, acorn, puri and a number of similar deep orange (rather than yellow fleshed) squashes, are finer textured, much sweeter and more delicate of flavor, without the bitterness or funk. I can't speak to your kind of pumpkins, but I'm guessing you're right that if you were hoping for that kind of squash, that may be a source of your dislike.

This is the source I use for making pumpkin empanadas, but I don't make them as written, which is way too sweet for us. The crust is just right, but I think I skip the sugar, or scant it, too. I thought I had a written version with amendments, but I don't. I just mess with it as I like and it always comes out great.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Pumpkin-Turnovers-51119020#ixzz2nI9Dyo00

Darn it, that link doesn't work, Pillog

I'm so sorry! They moved it. Here it is:

https://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/pumpkin-turnovers-51119020