Pumpkin Puree

Now that the holidays are over, it's time to do some prep for the remainder of the winter. For me, that means making pumpkin puree for the variety of pumpkin dishes I like to make.

We've had these pumpkins sitting on our dining room table since October. These also aren't pie pumpkins, just plain old jack-o-lantern style that we got at HEB before Halloween. They're pretty starchy at this point, but they'll still work fine for cooking.

Start carving into them in a manner befitting their Halloween-ish upbringing. 

Scoop out the guts, rinsing and drying the seeds for later toasting. 

Cut up the pumpkin into chunks that will lay relatively flat.
Place them face down on a couple of baking sheets.
You'll probably want to hit the pans with some cooking spray, but it's not really a big problem.

Into the oven they go.  350º - 400º for about an hour.
You want to be able to stick a fork easily through the skin.

The house smells really nice during this process. 

After roasting the chunks, let them cool and you should be able to peel most of the skin right off.
Not all of it will come off this easy, though, so you will probably have to break out the parring knife and cut the flesh away from the skin as closely as possible. 

Then just drop the chunks into a food processor to turn them into mush.

Voila: pumpkin mush.

Two medium-sized pumpkins netted us 23 cups of puree.
Labeled and now stored in the freezer, they are ready for the soups and breads and muffins to come.