Pumpkin Extravaganza! (This one's for you Mom!)

Two years ago a roommate and I decided to make homemade pumpkin pie. So we found a recipe and cooked our pumpkin and made a pie. It was delicious! I had so much fun that I have done it every year since. So yesterday I took the two pumpkins that Justin and I had painted and set to work. In the past this has been an afternoon undertaking; little did I know my pumpkin project which I started at 10:30 a.m. wouldn't end until 7:30 that night. Don't get too worried, I didn't spend that much time nonstop working on my pumpkins. First I carved them open and scraped out all the guts. Then I cut them up into 3" strips and put them on a cookie sheet to bake. I had two pumpkins and they wouldn't all fit on one cookie sheet so I had to do two batches. Each one is supposed to cook for an hour. They didn't look quite done so I did each one for about an extra 20 minutes.
The next step is to remove the skin. In the past it has pretty much just peeled off in most places. But not this year. I had to cut all the pumpkin skins off with a knife. After that you are supposed to blend it up and turn it into puree. Well, the pumpkin was still too hard and it wasn't mashing. So I stuck it back into the oven to cook for another 15 minutes. (Remember I have to do all of this twice because I have two batches). Then it is still a little too hard to mash with the beaters so I dig in with my hands and squish and mush it until it's pretty small. Next comes the easy part, right? Not!
***It would be good to note that at this point I thought it would be a good idea to make homemade soup for dinner. So I made Amanda's Cheesy Chicken Chowder which is delicious. However, it uses a lot of pans, and requires lots of cutting. But what's a few more dirty dishes when you are about to embark on a pumpkin journey..?***
I have this cute little food processor I got for my wedding and I thought, this should work pretty good to puree my pumpkin. Turns out it wasn't such a good idea. It worked great for the stuff on the very bottom but it didn't mix around so I had to stop and stir it every 10 seconds. A lot of work for a very little amount of pumpkin puree. So I decided to blend it instead. Good news is that I have a super powerful beater that beats nearly at the speed of light. Bad news is that it sprays pumpkin everywhere when you try to smash and puree your pumpkin. So then I decided to just use my manual food processor. (Turns out this is the best kitchen appliance I have and I use it for everything!) I put some in, stirred it around, and Voila! Pumpkin puree! It was sooo easy and I could do large amounts at the same time. Once I figured that out it only took about 15 minutes later. Well, by the time I finished that, my kitchen looked like this:

(Trust me, it looked worse in person)
I had nearly used every pot and pan and appliance I own! (Bring back any good memories mom?) Well, I really wanted to make pumpkin pie since I had been working all day on it, but there was absolutely no room or clean dishes with which to make a pie crust for my pie. So after over an hour of dishes my kitchen was finally clean again! And, I got 10 cups of pumpkin puree to store in my freezer to make pie with! (That will make 5 pies.)



All in all it was a long day but I think it was worth it. Maybe next year I will stick with one pumpkin. But at least now I know which appliance to use to smash it all up! Anyone want to come over for some pumpkin pie?