I cook when I am stressed out and I had a whopper of a stressful day last week waiting to hear how my father was doing in the hospital. So, I baked a leftover Halloween Pumpkin. It was huge too. It was the only one that wasn't carved and it took most of the afternoon to do it so it kept me occupied. It was easy enough to do. I don't think I will ever buy pumpkin in a can from the store ever again. This process can be applied to any large squash, i.e. acorn, butternut, banana, etc. The flavor is similar from one squash to the next and can be interchanged in recipes with little notice.
Cooking a Pumpkin:
Cut up pumpkin-discard seeds and innerds
Place pumpkin pieces face down on jelly roll pans or casserole dishes. Whatever oven safe pans you have.
Put some water in the bottom of the pan or dish so the pumpkin doesn't dry out in the oven. (about 1/2 to 1 inch)
Bake at 375 degrees until the pumpkin is tender and fork will easily go into it.
Take out and let cool till you can touch them.
Scrape cooked pumpkin off the skin into a large bowl. I used a fork and it worked great.
Put pumpkin pulp into either a blender, food processor, or a bowl and use a stick blender to puree in the bowl. I used the stick blender and it worked great. Less mess and it purees really fast. The food processor works well too. You may have to add a bit of water to it to get it the consistency you want in the blender or food processor.
Put pumpkin puree into freezer bags and freeze till you want to use them.
Canning pumpkin puree is not safe because commercial equipment must be used. I found freezing works just fine.
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