This is the perfect time of the year to purchase smaller pumpkins to cook, purée and freeze.
Puréed pumpkin is great for soups, muffins, pies, cakes and loaves.
I bought two pumpkins that were not huge and mostly unblemished.
You want smaller pumpkins as they are sweeter and better for cooking.
If you wait until closer to Halloween, the only ones left to buy are often very large and have less flavour.
You also have to cook the pumpkins not long after buying them unless you have a cooler place to keep them.
In the prairies you can’t keep them outside much past Thanksgiving or they freeze overnight.
In Ontario I found that buying a pumpkin early and letting it sit outside sometimes made it rot on warmer days.
Once you are ready to cook it, clean off the pumpkin as much as you can with a damp paper towel or run under water.
The first thing to do is remove the top with the stem.
Dig out the seeds with your hands.
Cut the pumpkin in half to make cleaning the inside easier.
Use a large spoon to scrape the stringy stuff off and just leave the pumpkin flesh.
Cut the pumpkin halves in manageable pieces and place them flesh up/skin down in two baking pans.
**Add water to cover the bottom of the pans and then cover the pans in foil to help keep the pumpkin moist.
Bake at 300° for 1hr 15min; it should be fairly soft and easy to shred with a fork.
Leave a bit longer if not soft enough.
Remove from oven and let cool slightly or you end up getting a steam bath while trying to remove the cooked pumpkin from the skin.
Use a fork and spoon to remove the pumpkin.
Shred with the fork then scrape and scoop with the spoon into a colander over a bowl.
This will remove some of the liquid.
I like to bag the pumpkin in 2 cup portions as many of the recipes I make ask for that quantity.
Press the pumpkin flat in the bag to remove the air and make it easier to stack in the freezer.
I purchased one pumpkin for $2.47 at Superstore.
That pumpkin yielded 13 cups of pumpkin purée.
One can of pure pumpkin 796ml (3 cups roughly) is regularly priced at $3.98 but was on sale for $2.87.
Buying a whole pumpkin instead of the can yielded me 4X the amount for less money!!
The only downside was that I had to cook the two pumpkins separately because of oven space so I did them on two different days.
Last year I only bought one pumpkin and I kicked myself because I ran out.
I have some yummy soup and muffin recipes that I like to make (recipes for future posts).
I encourage you to buy a pumpkin or two and freeze some purée for the winter.
🎃 good plan!