Making Pumpkin Puree

Well, I tried something else new this week! Some of you may have heard about the devastating pumpkin shortage of 2009. Rumor has it that there will only be enough pumpkin puree to fill the demand for the holiday season and then there won't be any more pumpkin available for the rest of the year. Are you in a panic yet? I decided to take matters into my own hands and make my own pumpkin puree!

I used a pumpkin that my mother-in-law (Hi Colette!) purchased for me at a pumpkin farm when she came to visit in October. The owner of the farm assured us that this was a great pumpkin to use for making pumpkin pie..sorry, I don't know the exact variety.

I cut the pumpkin into chunks. Sarah helped me scoop out seeds and stringy stuff. She helped out so much that I had to wash her shirt afterwards..orange pumpkin was everywhere. Then I put it into a 350 degree oven for about an hour. This is what it looked like after baking.

Then I scraped out all the flesh.

I placed the chunks into my blender and processed it until smooth. This is all the puree I ended up with from the entire pumpkin.

I placed it in freezer bags in one cup portions. I ended up with about 15 cups of puree. I figured that a typical can of pumpkin contains 1-3/4 cups of puree. So, I had about 8-1/2 cans of pumpkin puree here. Since that pumpkin cost $4 at the pumpkin farm and I ended up with 8-1/2 cans of puree, that works out to about $0.47 per can of pumpkin puree. Now, I don't know what it typically sells for at the store, but I usually pay $0.70 per can at our local "bent and dent" store. So, even at my reduced cost it is still a money savings for our family. Of course, there's more work involved in this method, but that's one of the reasons that I stay home, so I have the time to do little things like this.

And then we had pumpkin muffins for breakfast this morning. The homemade pumpkin puree must've turned out ok since Sam ate about five of the muffins!

So, unless you want to be one of the unfortunate victims of the great pumpkin shortage of 2009, you'd best get to work processing your leftover Halloween pumpkins!