Pumpkin Factory

So for some reason two of my roommates today decided it would be a good idea to pick up two huge pumpkins and process them to make lots of pumpkin treats! It makes sense, at only $2 each for good-sized pumpkins, you can get a lot of edible pumpkin out of that. They say small sugar pumpkins are the best for pies and baked goods, but surprisingly these pumpkins had very good flavor, even plain. And when you don't really take labor into account, it is well worth it compared to buying cans of pumpkin puree of pumpkin pie filling; and you can hardly ever buy cubes of pumpkin. I honestly thought we were just going to carve these pumpkins into jack-o-lanterns, but this pumpkin factor was quite fun. We cut open the pumpkins, scooped out all the guts, and separated out the seeds for roasting. Then we cut the flesh into chunks, wrapped them in foil, and baked them until tender.

We peeled and pureed most of the chunks, but also cubed some of the firmer ones to use in other applications. It took all evening and we had pumpkin all over the kitchen, but it was quite fun. We had to cook the pumpkin in two batches as it would not all fit in our oven, but that gave us the chance in between to cut up and puree more pumpkin.