Pumpkin!

Remember all those pumpkins we grew in the garden? Well, the ones that didn't get made into Jack-O-Lanterns were turned into pumpkin puree last weekend.  We took two huge pumpkins (I know you are supposed to use smaller sugar pumpkins, but we used what we had!) and cut, roasted, and pureed them to use in recipes all fall and winter long! I love pumpkin in so many things, so it was really exciting to be able to use our own pumpkins in this way. The hardest part of this was cutting through the pumpkin since we used such large ones. Patrick was at work, so it was up to me to slice them up.  Once that was done, we roasted the pieces at 350°F for about an hour.  

Then the blending!! We used, not kidding, every blending device in the house to try and puree this stuff. I got out the food processor (mine is not very effective, should have known it wouldn't work), the blender, the baby food processor, and then finally, the immersion blender (Winner!).  

In the end, we ended up with 15 cups of pumpkin, which I froze in individual bags so it would be easy to grab and defrost for recipes.  This was hard work and took the better part of an afternoon, but I can now add pumpkin to whatever my heart desires all winter long! Joy!