How to Cook a Pumpkin!

The best part of fall is pumpkin spice everything! Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Bread... My favorite is Pumpkin Pie. I love making Pumpkin Pie, but this year just the normal pumpkin from a can routine was not enough for me. I decided to make my pie from a real pumpkin. The pumpkin I used was a Cinderella Pumpkin. I was so excited about getting my own pumpkin that I had my own little picture shoot with it (Yeah, I know, I'm weird, but the picture above is my favorite from the shoot).

Today I am going to show you how I cooked my pumpkin and made pumpkin puree with it. I was so surprised at how easy it was.

First you wash your pumpkin (I almost forgot this step). I decided to cut my pumpkin in half from the stem down.

I also cut the halves in half because it made it easier to get the seeds out. I used a spoon and scooped out all the seeds and the stringy pumpkin gunk. I placed all the pumpkin half's onto a big cooking pan. I filled the pan with a thin layer of water and covered the pumpkin with tinfoil because I didn't want to burn the edges of my pumpkin. I cooked it in the oven for about two hours at 375 degrees.

I was surprised that my pumpkin had barely any seeds. The Cinderella Pumpkins are more for cooking so they had a lot of meat to them and not a lot of seeds.

While the pumpkin was cooking I seasoned the the pumpkin seeds, half with a garlic seasoning and the other half with a BBQ seasoning and olive oil.

I put them in the oven for about twenty minutes. I normally don't like pumpkin seeds. I don't know why. I kinda think it was more of a mind thing. But I find that when you make something you don't necessarily know if you like you are more likely to try something new. I found out that I actually really liked the pumpkin seeds. We decided that the garlic seasoning was the better flavor.

Back to my pumpkin. Once it was soft and a little bit mushy I took it out of the oven and let it cool for about 30 minutes.

I scooped all the mushy meat of the pumpkin into a bowl. It was really stringy. When I was done I was left with just the skin of the pumpkin.

Using a hand blender I blended the pumpkin mush (I'm calling it that cause that's really what it was), until it had a nice smooth texture.

What you now have is basically the same stuff you buy in a can. Fresh homemade pumpkin puree that is ready to be used in all of your pumpkin recipes. I found that it is a little bit watery compared to the canned puree. Next time I think I will try to drain some of the liquid out of it before I use it in my recipes.

I used my pumpkin to make pumpkin pie. I was happily surprised to find as I took my first bite of the pie that the pumpkin flavor was really rich.

I had a lot of leftover Pumpkin Puree so I froze some in an ice cube tray to use in smoothies and I used the leftover to make homemade Pumpkin Butter.

If you've never had Pumpkin Butter, you have to try it. It is like fall in a jar. I could just smell that stuff all day as it cooked in the crockpot. I followed this really easy recipe I found on pinterest. A link to the tutorial is below. My favorite part is that there is no sugar in the recipe. The main sweetener is honey.

http://tasty-yummies.com/2014/10/28/how-to-make-crock-pot-pumpkin-butter/