Pumpkin Puree

Making homemade pumpkin puree is oddly satisfying, and extremely easy. It sounds crazy, but the easiest way to do this is to stick the whole thing in the oven! Follow these steps and you'll see...

 

Step 1:

Stab pumpkin about 10 times to make little slits for steam to escape.

 

 

Step 2:

Place whole pumpkin on a baking sheet and bake in a 350 degree oven. I had to move some racks and turn my pumpkin on it's side to make it fit.

 

 

Step 3:

Bake until you can easily poke through the skin with a knife and the pumpkin has darkened in color. My pumpkin weighed 16.4 pounds and took 2 hours.

 

Step 4:

Let the pumpkin cool until you can handle it easily. Scrape the seeds and membranes from the fleshy part of the pumpkin. Once you have removed all of the seeds you can easily peel away the outer skin.

 

Step 5:

Place chunks of the cooked pumpkin into a food processor and pulse until completely smooth.

 

Step 6:

I wanted to store my pumpkin puree in 1 cup servings for easy use in the future. I lined a coffee cup with plastic baggies because it makes it easier to fill, and put 1 cup of puree in each.

 

 

 

Step 7:

This one pumpkin, that cost $4.00 made 15 cups of puree. After I portioned the puree I froze it so that I can use it all season long...Now I have to come up with some recipes!