Making puree from your own ‘great pumpkin’

Why should pigs get all the plain pumpkin?

That alliterative question popped into my head last weekend as I took some chunks of erstwhile raw, now roasted pumpkin from our oven and started the easy task of pulling the skin off.

It was all part of a project I’d assigned myself, to take a raw pumpkin and try to use every bit of it, all but the pulp and stem. My intention was to practice making something — perhaps a pie, or muffins, or a pudding — from a fresh pumpkin and then replicate the task for Thanksgiving.

Mind you, I have nothing against pumpkin from a can, gentle readers. It’s oh-so-convenient.

But I was toying with the idea of presenting a really-from-scratch pumpkin dish to our holiday guests as a conversation piece. At the same time I’d be able to present myself as someone who wasn’t content to discard a pumpkin shell into our compost pile, someone with even more of a waste-not-want-not frame of mind. Like a pioneer.

Coincidentally, when I searched for instructions on making puree from a real pumpkin I found them at a website called thepioneerwoman.com/.

Soon I was cutting the top off a pumpkin from the Wilkes-Barre Farmers Market, and scooping out the seeds.

I cut the shell in half and put the two halves on a baking sheet, along with the “lid” of the pumpkin, and sent all three pieces into the oven to roast for 45 minutes at 350 degrees.

Once the pieces were out of the oven, and peeled, I started mashing the pumpkin flesh with a hand masher. I tasted a little of it and said to myself, “It’s kind of plain, but it’s good. Maybe with a little butter and salt, or some cinnamon and ground cloves, this would be a fine side dish.”

Why should I round up the sugar, eggs, evaporated milk, and crust ingredients I’d need to turn it into a pie? Why, indeed? The less processed your food is, the better, right?

At that point, I kept remembering the image of a pig I’d seen on one of our local TV news stations. The pig was blissfully munching raw pumpkins, which had been donated to The Lands at Hillside Farms for resident animals to chow down.

That seems like a generous and environmentally conscious way to dispose of a pumpkin. But I’ve come to realize, plain pumpkin doesn’t have to be just for pigs and cows and chickens.

Back in the kitchen I suggested to Mark we could serve the pumpkin as a simple vegetable, along with the fish, roasted cauliflower, mashed potatoes and peas he was already making for supper. And we liked it. So did my mom, who had joined us for the meal and for our annual (DVD) viewing of “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.”

No matter how you want to use puree from your own “great pumpkin,” here is advice from thepioneerowman.com:

PUMPKIN PUREE

Cut pumpkin in half. Using a spoon or a scoop, scrape out the seeds and pulp. Place the pumpkin pieces on a baking sheet (face up or face down; either way) and roast in a 350°F oven until the pumpkin is fork-tender, 45 minutes. They should be light golden brown when done.

Peel off the skin from the pumpkin pieces. If you have a food processor, throw in a few chunks at a time. A blender will work, too, if you add a little water. Or you can simply mash it up with a potato masher, or move it through a potato ricer, or process it through a food mill.

Pulse the pumpkin until smooth. If it looks too dry, add in a few tablespoons of water during the pulsing to give it the needed moisture. (Note, if the puree is overly watery, you should strain it over cheesecloth or a fine mesh strainer to get rid of some of the liquid.)

Dump the pureed goodness into a bowl, and continue pureeing until all the pumpkin is done. You can either use this immediately in whatever pumpkin recipe you’d like or store it in the freezer (1 cupful sealed into each plastic storage bag) for later use.