Monday, November 4, 2013

Making Your Own Pumpkin Puree

Now that Halloween is over, what should you do with all those pumpkins? Well if they were carved into Jackolanterns, well then they are good compost material and not much else, but hey compost is very important. If however you left them alone, as we did all our home grown pumpkins (we only carved the ones we bought from the store), then you can make your own pumpkin puree. I started mine this weekend with two of my pumpkins, but I have many more to do before the snow falls.



 Basically you can do pumpkin puree in one of two ways, chop up the pumpkin, scoop out the seeds and gunk, and then either boil it until soft in a large pot, or bake it on a tray with a little water in the bottom of the tray. I personally prefer the boiling. I do not know the actual nutrition info for either method, or if one is preferred, but boiling offers a much more uniform puree and is much easier to work with I feel.




Now the seeds if you saved them are great for roasting, while your pumpkin is boiling. Once the pumpkin is soft, simply let it cool enough to touch and scoop the soft insides into a bowl, and of course compost the shell.








Once it is scooped into a bowl, simply scoop portions into freezer bags and freeze, or if you prefer, into canning jars and can. From two small homegrown organic pumpkins I got an entire tray of roasted seeds and about 1 gallon of puree. Now you can use that puree for anything you need pumpkin in. A homemade Pumpkin pie using homemade puree, is delish!

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