Pumpkins!

  Slowly but surely, I am obtaining Pioneer Womanish Status as a DIY'er in the kitchen.  The same neighbor that let us have pumpkins to carve for Jack-O-Lanterns also let us have extra pumpkins to make puree with.  I jumped at this chance to find my inner PW and decided that I was going to follow thru this odyssey and make my own pumpkin puree.

  I started off with two nice sized medium pumpkins.

  Then I decided after a phone call to my SIL M, that I should only puree the pumpkin on the left, we decided that the pumpkin on the right was past it's useful life.

   Then we cut the pumpkin into slices and cleaned the 'guts' off of each slice.  I was pretty shocked when Mr T offered to help with the seed cleaning because when we did Jack O' Lanterns, he wouldn't touch the 'guts' at all.

   I put the sliced pumpkin on baking sheets - I would cut up the pieces into smaller chunks next time.  I stuck them in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes or so.  Then I took a large spoon and peeled the 'pumpkin meat' off of the skins and put it in a bowl.

   Then I used my AMAZING (yes, I had to shout that!) Vitamix blender to puree the pumpkin meat.  I had to use a little water to get it to puree properly but in the end I got great results!

  Out of this one pumpkin, I got 12 cups of pumpkin puree!  I did learn via another phone call to my SIL M that the larger the pumpkin the more they tend to be yellow.  I was afraid that I had a 'bad' pumpkin and had spent the better part of my morning making puree for nothing.  Next year, I am going to try a smaller pumpkin and see if the taste is any different along with coloring.

I used this as my main resource (besides two phone calls to the SIL) - Pioneer Woman's Site:
Make Your Own Pumpkin Puree

Then I kept the seeds and used this recipe for roasting the seeds:  Pepitos!

In the end, I wasn't all that crazy about roasted pumpkin seeds but I am excited to make something with the pumpkin puree!!!

Have a Blessed Day!
~C~