My mom taught me years ago how to make our own canned pumpkin. This year I did it with a non-gmo pumpkin. Woo hoo!! It occurred to me that not everyone would know how to do this, so I thought I would post a little "how to" for those of you interested in having fresh pumpkin in your freezer year round. Plus the cost of doing it yourself is considerably cheaper than buying it in the store.
What you will need:
Crock-Pot
Pumpkin
Sharp knife
Some water
Food Processor
or blender1 cup measuring cup
Freezer safe, non BPA, quart size bags (I use Ziplock)
Wash the outside of your pumpkin and start cutting it into chunks.
Using a sharp knife, cut the hard outer layer off and then inner slimy/seed layer off.
Rinse the pumpkin chunks and then pile them into your crock pot.
Add enough water for about 2 inches on the bottom.
Cook it on low overnight or high for several hours during the day. When it is in the crock pot you can walk away and forget about it and not need to sit there and watch that it doesn't boil over or run out of water.
Once it is fully softened (stick a fork in it to check, the same way you would check mashed potatoes), drain off as much water as possible. Then put the chunks of pumpkin straight into your food processor or blender. Note: you may need to do several batches this way depending on the amount of pumpkin you have.
When it is completely smooth, scoop two cups out and put them into a freezer bag. Seal the bag after getting as much air out as possible. Continue to bag it up, two cups at a time until you have bagged up all of the pumpkin puree.
Now put the bags in the freezer and enjoy fresh pumpkin all year long!
I like to layer the bags on top of each other and then stack them on a large book in my freezer. That way they freeze flat and not in weird shapes that are hard to store.
This year I did up a Red-Warty-Thing and three Pick-a-Pie pumpkins. We have been eating pumpkin like crazy!!
I finally did this with our October pumpkin last night! :)
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