Homemade Pumpkin Puree

My kitchen smelled heavenly today.  When I finally woke up around 10 this morning (waking up not being the same as getting up, which I had to do at around 6) I decided that it was time to do something with the pumpkin Hey, Babe bought at the farmers market last week.  We were scheduled to have Pumpkin Black Bean Soup for dinner and rather than use the puree from a can I decided to make my own.

Pumpkin Puree may just be the simplest make-it-yourself-instead-of-buy-it-prepared item I have ever attempted.  You start by preheating your oven to 350° and washing a pumpkin,

slice it in half,

scoop out the guts and seeds

and turn the two halves over onto a pan with some water and put it all in the oven for about an hour and a half until it is soft.

Yeah, that looks pretty soft, it's starting to pucker and warp a bit.

Scoop out the flesh

and then the last step is to run it through your food processor and you are all set

 

Some recipes have you then strain the pumpkin so that it is the same consistency as the canned stuff, others have you cook it until the liquid is reduced.  For my purposes (soup) I left it as it was.

I have never actually had homemade pumpkin puree before (at least not to my knowledge).  It looked like the baby food I painstaking made for Little Man when he was a baby, to which he without fail turned his nose up.  It smelled delicious and I had been smelling it for over an hour by this point. Not knowing what to expect I went ahead and tasted it.  I really liked it.  I like winter squashes, so I'm not sure why this was such a surprise.  It would be delicious as a side with just a pat of butter and some salt and pepper.  But this puree was destined for other things.  Next up, Pumpkin Black Bean Soup.