Recipe Monday -- Pumpkins!

It's pumpkin time and they are popping up everywhere here. This weekend I splurged and bought two beautiful ones. One larger one for us and one smaller one for the girls in the coop! They are in their resting mode which means no eggs for a while. I thought they would enjoy a good pumpkin as much as we do.

If you have ever tried to cut open a pumpkin, you know it's like putting your life or rather limbs/digits in jeopardy. They are just rock hard. Thankfully, the smaller one was hard but we (actually dear hubby) chopped it into four sections (one for each girl). This big one however went into the oven whole after jabbing a few stab holes in the top.

I think everyone should bake a pumpkin some time in their life. It smells amazingly warm and earthy in the house while it cooks and it really is not difficult. Wanna try it?

Ingredients:

• 1 pumpkin (ours was a cinderalla pumpkin which is regarded as a superior dessert pumpkin in the culinary world for its moist, thick flesh and custard like sweet flavor).

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Carefully jab several stab holes along the top of the pumpkin. I think we went for about 7 stab holes on our big guy.
3. Place pumpkin on a cookie tray that has been covered with reynolds wrap.
4. Bake until a knife can be easily inserted into pumpkin. Ours took 1-1/2 hours. Make sure to check both sides of the pumpkin for tenderness. One side of our pumpkin had a thicker wall and it added about 15 more minutes before it was tender. If your pumpkin is small, start checking after 45 minutes.
5. Remove pumpkin from oven and slice in two. This is really easy to do now. Be careful though, it will release hot steam and juices. Allow to cool for about 20 minutes.
6. Remove stringy stuff and seeds into a bowl (don't throw away the seeds!).
7. Remove outer skin from flesh and put pumpkin flesh into a bowl. Continue this process until all of the pumpkin has been skinned.
8. In small batches puree flesh until smooth and creamy.
9. Enjoy your beautiful puree in any recipe that uses pumpkin from a can. Fresh is is soooooo much better and no bpa concerns to worry about.

Seeds:

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Rinse the seeds and stringy stuff in a colander and most of the seeds will float to the top. Keep scooping out the seeds to a bowl until you have them all. Some of the seeds like to cling to the stringy stuff. I just pulled them away from it. Although, I've read that some people keep some of that attached and bake them with the seeds. I used only the seeds.
3. Spray cookie tray with canola oil or dribble some olive oil on the tray. Spread seeds on the tray so that there is a nice single layer of seeds.  Sprinkle seeds with sea salt and toast seeds for 10 to 20 minutes until lightly browned.  Small seeds brown fast so keep an eye on your seeds. You don't want them to burn. My seeds were big and took the whole 20 minutes. The last 7 minutes, I stood at the oven and kept moving them around so they didn't burn.
4. Put toasted seeds in a bowl and enjoy! Don't cover them with anything. They will keep for days if they last that long.  :)

Freshly cut after baking and starting to cool:

Beautiful chunks of pumpkin:

Starting to puree:

Can you almost smell it?

The results! Isn't it just beautiful. I just love that pure orange color.

Rinsed seeds ready to toast!

I'll post some recipes soon that will be using my puree.  I kept some in the fridge and froze three of the jars for later.

Here is a picture of what was left afterwards. Yes, the girls gobbled up the warm stringy stuff like it was candy!

Bon Appetit!