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Health & Fitness

The Halloween Upcycle: Pureed Pumpkin Tutorial!

When I look back at photos from years past, we have pumpkins galore at Halloween - on the porch, in the house, painted, carved - you name it, we had it.  After apple-picking season came pumpkin-picking season.  We would either go to a pumpkin farm, or a local church selling pumpkins, or at the very least, a local store selling pumpkins.  But this year, neither of my kids asked to pick pumpkins.  It was a strange Halloween indeed.  Not only was there no pumpkin-picking trip, one child (the teen boy) didn't even wear a costume!  He still took a pillow case and walked the neighborhood with a few of his buddies, stopping his trick-or-treating only to hide in the bushes and scare his sister, but it still was not a typical Halloween.  And I think, to my dismay, that my typical Halloween days are coming to an end.  It's a sad thought and another reminder that I will have two kids at home for a very short time before they are celebrating Halloween at college (I get nauseated at the thought of what that will look like).  In order to hold on to the last few bits of celebrating Halloween the typical way, I picked up a few pumpkins...from the supermarket.  I figured, if no one wants to go pumpkin-picking but I still wanted to have a few in the house, the least I could do would be to purchase pumpkins that could be upcycled after the candy-gorging, costume-wearing, sister-scaring day comes to an end.  So instead of purchasing those huge gourds from the local farm, I picked up a few sugar pumpkins.

Sugar pumpkins are what are used in pureed pumpkin and pumpkin pie filling.  They have a natural sweetness, not unlike acorn squash, and sometimes labeled "pie pumpkins" in the store.  Pureed pumkin is a versatile ingredient to have on hand.  It can be used in a pumpkin pie recipe, it can replace the fat in a cake recipe with equal parts pumpkin puree for a moist, low-fat cake, or you can use it to "hide" this vitamin-rich vegetable in tomato sauce, meatballs (recipe to follow later this week), or macaroni and cheese.  But before you add it to your favorite recipe, you have to know how to make pumpkin puree.

Here's what you'll need:

2 Sugar pumpkins

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Baking sheet

Sharp knife

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Immersion blender or food processor

Preheat the oven to 450 F degrees.  Take your adorable sugar pumpkins and slice them in half from top to bottom.  Using a soup spoon, scrape out the seeds and the ick (actually called fibrous strands, but if you have ever touched them, you would call them ick too).  If you truly want to upcycle these pumpkins, you can discard or compost the ick and save the seeds for roasting.

Once empty, place the pumpkins, cut side down, on a cookie sheet.  I use a piece of aluminum foil for easier clean up, but feel free to put them right onto the baking sheet.  Put the baking sheet with the pumpkins into the oven for 25 minutes, or until they are easily pierced through with a fork.  When the time is up, remove them from the oven and flip them over to cool.  Once cool, remove the meat from the skin.  You can accomplish this one of two ways:  Scoop the meat out using a soup spoon, or use a knife and cut the skin away from the meat.

If you are using an immersion blender, then great, start blending.  If you are using a food processor, fill it with pumpkin meat and blend until smooth.

That's all it takes!  I would suggest freezing your puree in batches.  I put mine in plastic bags in 1/2 cup servings before freezing.  You can either defrost it on the counter or soak the bag in a warm water bath.  Stay tuned for recipes but in the meantime, let me know what you add your puree to!

 For more pictures from this tutorial, head over to Goodness Gracious Living!


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