Hello and happy Monday, or happy whatever day it is you’re reading this.
It is coming up on holiday season. Which means, it’s coming up on pie season!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been caught more than once forgetting to buy pumpkin puree until last minute, and having to run to the store in the hopes of snatching one of the last available cans. Thankfully, I’ve never been one of the poor souls that’s had to explain why there wasn’t pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, but it’s been close.
To help myself avoid this scenario in the future, I’ve decided I’m going to make pumpkin puree from scratch and store it for later.
After a little bit of research, I found some great news! It’s super easy.
If you’re interested, you can follow the recipe here.
What you’ll need:
- A pumpkin
- An oven
- Cookie sheet
- Aluminum foil or parchment paper
I like to use smaller pumpkins. They’re easier to cut and clean, they don’t take as long to cook through, and using larger pumpkins means you get A LOT of cooked pumpkin. Most pie recipes call for roughly 2 cups of puree, which makes 2 pies.
If you plan on making a lot to save for later, or to give away, a bigger pumpkin will be the way to go.
It also doesn’t really matter the type of pumpkin you use. I’ve found this recipe works best with carving pumpkins (those lovely ones the grocery store likes to put on display right around Halloween), and pie pumpkins. One pie pumpkin should make enough cooked puree for one regular pumpkin pie recipe. You can also use this recipe for other gourds, like acorn squash.
That’s enough talk, let’s get to the recipe.
First step is to cut the gourd in half and scoop out the guts. I like to save some seeds for growing, and the rest for roasting. The orange goop is an awesome green material, or nitrogen, for a compost heap. If you’ve got chickens, they’ll also love this stuff as a treat.
Once both halves are nice and scraped clean, place them face side down on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet.
Then pop that in a 350F oven for about an hour. At the end of the hour, test the flesh of the pumpkin with a fork to make sure it’s softened.
If you want your puree to be smoother, you can run it in a blender, or through a food mill, which will make everything an even consistency throughout. I just smooshed the puree around in the baggy to get it to the consistency I like.
Final step, store it in the freezer.
Like I said. SUPER EASY!
Canning vs freezing your pumpkin
The reason I suggest freezing the puree over canning is that it is harder to ensure the safety of the canned puree. Pumpkin and other squashes are incredibly dense. This means that the heat required to penetrate to the center of the jar to sterilize the food is harder to reach when the squash is in puree form.
It’s generally recommended when canning any squash, to cut them into cubes, and then turn those cubes into puree later when you need it. There are a couple safe methods to home can your pumpkin puree, but they take longer and are more labor and time intensive.
If you want to avoid the extra step of pureeing your canned chunks later on, one way you can get around it is to store your puree into the freezer. This way harmful bacteria doesn’t get the chance to grow and all you have to do to make your pies is to let the puree thaw.
Thank you all for checking out this recipe, I’d love to hear if anyone follows along, so please let me know how it went for you.
I hope you all have a freaking awesome rest of your week, and I’ll see you next time!
-Alyx
