In the Kitchen - The Great Pumpkin Explosion

Pumpkins went on sale this week at our local Earl May...  $1.99 each for any size and any type.  Journey was able to get 4 to carve this weekend at that price, and one is really big!!  I thought it was a pretty good deal and you know how much I like to save money and get a good deal.

I never knew there was a difference between a "baking pumpkin" and a "carving pumpkin" but the gal at Earl May says there is a difference.  So when Journey got 4 "carvers", I got one "baker" for me.  I have never made my own pumpkin puree so I was excited to get home and research how to do it today.  It seemed pretty easy and with some frozen pumpkin puree, I could make more baked pumpkin donuts and pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving without having to buy canned pumpkin.  The instructions seemed pretty easy:

Cut the pumpkin in half (you could also bake it whole but I wanted to preserve the seeds without cooking them so I had to cut mine first).  Of course I removed the seeds and guts.  Oil the edges of the cut pumpkin and place it cut side down in a baking pan.  Bake for at least 90 minutes at 350 degrees.  I added water to the bottom of the baking pan to add a steam effect to the cooking.

Mine was in the oven for 2 hours and probably not quite as done as it could have been but it looked like it was soft enough.

Let the pumpkins cool in order to be able to remove the skin.  I used a knife to cut the skin off, preserving as much flesh as I could.  I added the skin to the compost pile... never waste anything.  Journey will be disappointed after school when she finds out that I could not remove the skin in one piece and save it for her.  She wanted to make a "hat" out of the skin.   :)

Once the skin was removed, the next step seemed like a "no-brainer".  Puree the cooked pumpkin in the food processor.  This was only the second time I used my "new" 1960s $5 garage sale GE Food Processor.  I purchased it only because I thought there may come a time when it was clearly the best tool for some particular job.  This seemed like the perfect job, so with pride, I stuffed about 1/2 the pumpkin into the processor in big chunks and turned it on.
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The poor old processor sounded like an airplane in my kitchen.  So loud but seemed to be working... well not well enough...  maybe I had too much in the processor or maybe the pumpkin could have been a little mushier.. or maybe the darn food processor was just old and tired.  I don't know.  What I did next, I even knew NOT TO DO!  I put a scraper down into the little chute and carefully tried to push the pumpkin pieces down to the reach the blades.

You know what happened next, don't you?  I was not prepared for this so I let out some choice little words when a LARGE GRINDING SOUND erupted in front of me, the blades stopped suddenly, the processor bowl lid flew off, and partial pumpkin puree EXPLODED ALL OVER me and the kitchen.  It was in my hair, on my shirt, on my new slipper, all over the floor, the refrigerator, walls, under the cupboards, and half way to the dining room.  The scraper was wedged in the blades.  I DID have the mind to quickly unplug the machine (but that was a little late..the machine was totally ground to a halt by then).  I could only laugh.. should have taken a picture but I quickly got into cleaning mode and wiped everything down.  Here is the only true damage:

I am not willing to look and see if that is one of my Pampered Chef scrapers or one of the Salvation Army 99cent scrapers.  It is now in the trash, where it will stay.

After all the cleaning was done, I went back to processing.. more patiently and without shoving anything in the top of the food processor.  I ended up with 2 bags of pumpkin puree to freeze for later and pretty darn happy about it.  Need to update my whiteboard now with new inventory.

You know, I was pretty worried about buying a food processor for just this reason.  I just knew I would do something like that and prefer the old fashioned knife and cutting board approach to chopping, slicing, etc.  It is the "puree" issue that I need a darn high powered machine to do.  Hopefully lesson learned.. at least I still have all 10 fingers so I can keep blogging..  ..  ttyl!