Got Pumpkins?

Anyone have any pumpkins laying around?

Well, I know I do!

First, I have to show off my cool designs...

Haunted MansionOwl sitting in a tree. (The owl is a little damaged from the frost last night)

And a skull and cross bones... This was the hubb's pumpkin, but I ended up carving out about half of it as he was having trouble with the intricacies! It took a woman's gentle touch!

Okay, so back to the recipe. You can go ahead and use the pumpkins like the ones above... or if you have a pumpkin that you didn't carve, you can use that too!

Just make sure you scrape out your pumpkin so its nice and clean on the inside.
Poke a few holes in your pumpkin with a knife...


Cover your pumpkin with aluminum foil and put in your oven on 375. I had to take out one of my cooking racks and put the one left on the lowest rack possible in order to fit this huge pumpkin in my oven!Bake for 1 1/2 - 2 1/2 hours depending on the size of your pumpkin. A 4-5 lb. pumpkin will probably only take about 1 1/2 hours, but this was a bigger pumpkin and took more like 2 1/2 hours. Just cook it until its nice and soft... Pretty much folding in on itself!

When I took mine out of the oven, my pumpkin was about 1/3 full of water. I put on my oven mitts and picked up the pumpkin (as it folded in on itself) and dumped it out... Now that I think about it, an easier (and safer) way to do this would be to cut it open over the sink and just let it drain that way.
Now, cut your pumpkin open...
And scrape out all the pumpkin. When you're done, you'll be left with just the skins of the pumpkin.
And lots of pumpkin for cooking! Lots cheaper than buying the canned stuff!
If you're not going to use this right away, I would suggest putting this through your blender/food processor to make pumpkin puree. Add a little bit of water if it needs a little to puree.

Stay close for lots of yummy pumpkin recipes to come!

*****Note- I had a friend ask me about freezing pumpkin. You absolutely can freeze pumpkin. My suggestion would be to puree it and measure it out before hand and label your freezer bag with how many cups of pumpkin are in that bag. Happy cooking (and freezing!)