Farmer's Market Organic Canned Pumpkin, 15 oz, 2 Pack

This is plain canned pumpkin - the cooked, smooth-pureed flesh of the squash and nothing else - packed by Farmer's Market Foods in two 15 oz cans. Shoppers mix it up with pumpkin pie filling every autumn, and the two are not interchangeable. Pie filling comes pre-sweetened and pre-spiced, ready to pour into a shell. Pure pumpkin like this is an ingredient, so you decide the sugar, the cinnamon and the nutmeg.

That makes it the can most recipes actually call for. A 15 oz can is the standard measure in a classic pumpkin pie, and it carries just as well into muffins, quick breads, pancakes, waffle batter and drop cookies. On the savory side, stir it into soup with onion and stock, fold it through risotto, or thin it into a curry base.

Two cans suit a baking weekend or the run-up to Thanksgiving, when one pie and one loaf of pumpkin bread empty both of them in an afternoon.