Pumpkin Puree

GrEaT pumpkin adventures on the Grange.

One of our local stores and the one that Grange man just happens to love had pumpkins on sale for $0.01 {yes, one penny} each, not per pound, just each. Holy cow, can you imagine…well, we did, I sent Grange man and Doodles up there to get a few and they were already back to regular price, figure’s that our luck. They did come back with 2 pumpkins though, in addition to the pumpkin that Doodles already picked up a few days before Halloween, so we had a total of 3 pumpkins.

The plan I had for these pumpkins was to simply them to puree them. Some recommend that you buy the smaller pumpkins but I figured, WHY!?! if you get the bigger pumpkins it means more puree.  {I'm wishing we would have got the smaller pumpkins...I honestly don't know what I am going to do with all this puree}  The pumpkins were about the size of a volleyball and basketball. Not unreasonably sized, GrEaT for carving, but that isn’t what we were going to do with them.

I had this image in my mind of the awesome smell of pumpkin wafting through the house as they baked. To me pumpkin is a smell that defines fall….but without the nutmeg and other spices it really doesn’t have a smell or even much of a taste....so that was a bummer.

Grange man helped me out, he cut off the tops and we gutted them the best we could. {We saved the seeds to bake later…recipe to follow}. Then he cut them in half and then half again and then in half again. We had 4 baking sheets of cut up pumpkin. Yes, it was a tad bit overwhelming.

Roasted Pumpkin Puree Steps

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2. Whole Pumpkins {however many you are ambitious enough to bake and the size you prefer}

3. Cut out top of pumpkin {like you normally do}

4. You can either cut in half and gut pumpkin or you can do it the old fashion way by gutting from the top

5. Cut up into manageable chunks {4” to 5” square or triangular} you can put these upside down or right side up on your baking sheets

6. Bake from 45 – 60 minutes or until fork soft

7. Let cool

8. Remove pumpkin skin and slice into 1 – 1 ½ inch chunks

9. Put into food processor with the grater attachment and the chop attachment to get a fine puree

Depending upon how much you are processing, you can either remove the puree directly out of the mixer or pour into a bowl. We made a bunch so we poured ours into a bowl and repeated step 9 until all of the pumpkin was pureed.

This is our first 2 pans...as you can see we've only filled 2 bags and we have much more to go...oy vey!

10. Put about 1-2 cups into a freezer zip lock sandwich bag {Grange man decided to make some of them extra full}

11. Lay flat and freeze

I’ll share recipes when I get a chance to start making stuff with the pumpkin puree. I love pumpkin and so does Doodles, the dogs even love pumpkin so they will get some dog treats made for them too. They got to get in on the act too and had a few chunks every now and then.

Grange man just kept saying “I sure hope you like pumpkin”…."because that is a lot of pumpkin"

M & S

Uptown Grange