Oh how I love the fall season! Life seems to slow down a bit (even though we have school and regular activities!), you get to look forward to a nice cozy house to step into after a crisp day outside, and best of all is you get to start baking and using your oven again for all those yummy fall recipes!
I have been looking forward to this time of year ever since I saw how many pumpkins were growing in our garden this summer! Last time we tried growing pumpkins we had 1 or 2. That was our first year of gardening. Fast forward 6 years and after lots of hard work by my husband, we tried pumpkins again and we ended up with over twenty! I cooked up about 15 to freeze and the rest are for fresh eating and decorations.
So excited to make pumpkin muffins, pumpkin bread, pumpkin pie… YUM!
You start with a sugar pumpkin, or in my case 15… 🙂 Anyways, wash all of the pumpkins you will be working with.
After washing them remove the stems and then start cutting into them. You’ll cut them in half and then remove all of the seeds and goop. I saved the seeds to roast the next day!
Next you’ll place the pumpkin halves on a baking sheet and bake for 45-60 minutes. You’ll want the pumpkin to be pretty soft so as long as mine weren’t browning I just kept on baking. I started checking mine at about 40 minutes with a fork and then checked every 5 minutes or so until they were nice and soft.
Remove the pumpkins from the oven and let them cool enough so that you can handle them without burning yourself.
This next part you can decide which route you want to take. Either way works and really I don’t prefer one over the other. You can either scoop out the cooked pumpkin into a food processor and then puree it…
or you can scoop it into a food mill and puree it that way. I use a squeezo strainer but any food mill should work just fine!
After I puree the pumpkin I like to remove a bit of the water from it. To do that I just placed a dish towel over a strainer in a bowl. I scooped the puree into the center of the towel and the gathered the edges and squeezed the excess water out. I feel like when I do this the consistency works better in recipes that call for pumpkin puree but it’s not totally necessary if you would rather skip this step.
Next is just scooping the pumpkin into ziploc freezer bags. I did some bags in 1 cup portions and others in 2 cup portions. After you scoop it into the bags remove as much air as possible and zip them up. Label them and then freeze!
This was kind of an all day project but it was worth it for all the yummy pumpkin recipes I’m going to be making this fall and winter. What are some of your favorite pumpkin recipes? Let me know in a comment below!
Pumpkin Puree
Ingredients
- sugar pumpkins
Instructions
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Wash all of your pumpkins and remove the stems.
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Preheat oven to 350.
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Cut pumpkins in half and remove the seeds and other goop by scraping with a spoon.
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Place pumpkin halves face up on a baking tray and bake for 45-60 minutes or until the pumpkins are tender when poked with a fork. Remove from oven and let them cool until you are able to handle them.
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Scoop cooked pumpkin out of the skins into a food processor or a food mill and puree.
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If you would like to remove excess water from your puree place a dish towel in a strainer that has been placed into a bowl. Scoop pumpkin puree into the center of the towel and then gather the edges and squeeze out the excess water. Repeat until all of the pumpkin has been strained.
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Measure out 1 or 2 cup portions into freezer zipper bags. Label and freeze.
I just bought three pumpkins to do this with and then I saw your post! Perfect timing! Your pumpkin bread and my pumpkin ribbon bread are two of my faves!