Pumpkin puree
I've seen your buddies grinning at me all over town, but who's the tub of puree now, Mr. Pumpkin? #fb
- John Heaton (@JHeaton416) October 15, 2013
I did something last night I'd never done before: made my own pumpkin puree. It's ridiculously simple, but all the same I'm pretty proud of myself.
I used Alton Brown's recipe, because I love Alton Brown and I trust his judgement. I can't imagine any other recipe would be very much different from his. You cut the pumpkin in half, remove the seeds, bake it for 30 to 45 minutes, scrape out the flesh, and throw it in the food processor or hit it with an immersion blender. Anything beyond that, it's not really pumpkin puree, is it?
I made the puree to use in a batch of Pumpkin Turkey Chili for a family at church. I could have just used canned pumpkin puree -- and have, come to think of it -- but the aforementioned Alton Brown had nothing good to say about the canned stuff, and it's not like pumpkins are in short supply this time of year, so I figured, what the heck? It was a low risk proposition; if I messed it up somehow, I could always resort to canned puree.
But I didn't mess it up, so tonight I'll make the chili. Whee! I'm pretty sure I'll need to think of something else to make with the leftover puree; I don't know how much I ended up with, but the chili recipe only calls for two cups, and I'm pretty sure I've got more than that. How much more, I have no idea; I'm not very good at estimating volume.