Hold the Meat – My pumpkin massacre

Carved pumpkin

Okay, I feel as though I’ve been pretty honest when it comes to my lack of food knowledge. In fact, the main reason I started writing for this site was so I would have a reason to get into the kitchen more. So here’s my confession for the week: other than from a store or a can, I didn’t really know where pumpkin pie came from.

I know that sounds insane, and of course I knew that pumpkin pie, or pumpkin bread, or any pumpkin dish came from pumpkins, but I didn’t really understand the logistics of the situation. I’m not kidding when I say that I honestly believed that the guts of the pumpkin is what got cooked. Sigh. I know.

So my friend Elizabeth came over and explained very slowly and clearly that it’s the pumpkin itself that gets roasted, while the guts just get thrown away. My mind = blown.

My job was to get the pumpkin. I didn’t want to use our happy pumpkin patch pumpkin that we had just picked over the weekend, so I decided to go across the street to the grocery store and buy one there. Now, I love a deal, but this is what got us into trouble. the grocery store pumpkins weren’t being sold by the pound: they were just $5.99 each. So what does that mean? It means that I had to find the biggest, heaviest pumpkin I could, just to get my money’s worth. Because I’m ridiculous.

What I ended up with was pretty much the carriage used in Cinderella. Like, I could hollow this thing out and use it as a dog bed. It was ginormous. It put my 19-lb. cute pumpkin to shame. In fact, we estimated that it was probably around 30 lbs. so yes, I was proud of myself for getting my money’s worth, but dear lord, we did not need that much pumpkin.

So we set to work slicing it apart, and throwing away the guts while reserving the seeds. After we got it into relatively manageable-sized pieces, we stuck it in the oven and baked it uncovered at 375. Because of the insane volume of pumpkin, we weren’t really sure how long to keep it in there, but we knew it was done when it was slightly browned, and a fork went all the way through.

After it was finished roasting, it was time to make the puree. We peeled off the skin and diced the pumpkin into pieces that would be small enough to fit in a food processor. After it was processed, the puree needed to be drained. Cheesecloth would probably be the recommended way of doing this, but I’m not exactly working in the Top Chef kitchen over here, so we used paper towels and a strainer.

At the end of the day (literally, this endeavor took the entire day), we ended up with an obscene amount of pumpkin puree– Something like 7 quarts or more. So what to do with all of that pumpkin? Well, frankly, I’m still trying to figure it out. But we started out with making some pumpkin treats. Luckily for us, Elizabeth has a website with our friend Lauren, and Lauren had just posted a bunch of yummy pumpkin recipes, including one for pumpkin chocolate chip bread that she made for me last year and caused me to see God.

So we made that and the pumpkin chocolate chip cookies that were also on that page, and divvied up the rest of the puree into freezer bags, so we can make more delightful fall treats. I’ve still got about five freezer bags left, so stay tuned for more pumpkin adventures!