Freezing Pumpkin

Halloween is over; ghosts and goblins have been treated, and that left me to face the big pumpkin this morning.  How do I cut this pumpkin?  Maybe I should just smash it?  The serrated knife was of no help but a sharp filet knife did the trick.  The easiest way is probably to cut the pumpkin in half, put the skin side up on a cookie sheet, ant roast it in the oven.

I prefer to cut the pumpkin up in manageable pieces after the seeds and slime are removed.  I also trimmed the pieces of what was the inside of the pumpkin to make it look neat.

I filled a large pot with the pumpkin pieces, added lots of water, and put it on the stove to cook for about 45 minutes.  I checked with a wooden stick to see if the pumpkin was soft.

When the pumpkin was soft, I removed it from the heat, and poured out as much water as possible.  After a while, the pieces were cool enough to handle and it was so easy to cut the pumpkin meat away from its rind.  I put the meat in a bowl and smashed it down with a potato masher.

I filled three quart size plastic zip lock bags with smashed up pumpkin and put them in the freezer for baking pumpkin bread at a later time.  We do have the holidays coming up soon.  I didn't use all of the pumpkin:  enough is enough.  It was a large pumpkin and it will be a good addition to the compost pile in the garden.   It is now time to move away from the pumpkin and enjoy the weekend.

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