Pumpkin

During the month of September I checked the grocery store every time I went looking for a pumpkin to make pumpkin baby food for Ella. Pumpkin season fell perfectly for me to make pumpkin as a baby food for her. As the beginning of October rolled around, the pumpkins appeared in the stores. I grabbed one up the first time I saw them. As usual, I read about how to make the pumpkin on www.wholesomebabyfood.com. I did, however, buy my pumpkin prior to reading on the website. The website recommends buying a smaller pumpkin, sometimes called a sugar or pie pumpkin. Although I bought the wrong type of pumpkin, I plowed ahead.

I figured that the pumpkin would be cooked similarly to the butternut sqaush - and I was right. After removing the seeds and strings, place the pieces fleshside down in a little water in a baking dish, and bake at 400° until the skin puckers up. Sounds pretty simple, right? Well, it might have been simple if I had the proper knife for breaking down a full size pumpkin, but I don't. It took me quite a while to get all the pieces cut apart, and separated into several different dishes (I think I had to use 4 different baking dishes to get all the pieces in the oven at the same time). Even though it was difficult to break the pumpkin down, the result was definitely worth it. Once baked, the pumpkin flesh is easily removed from the pumpkin skin. I pureed most of the pumpkin, and froze it in the ice cube trays. What I didn't puree, I cut into small dices for Ella to eat as finger food once she got a little older. I froze small servings of the pumpkin dices in packages I made with Glad Press 'n Seal.

The two best parts of making the pumpkin:

1. Ella loved it.
2. I got to roast fresh pumpkin seeds for myself. I LOVE fresh pumpkin seeds roasted with some butter and salt . . . yum :)