Pumpkins

We have had a full weekend of fall fun, I am ready for a little rest as Tyler would say!! We had Sunday dinner early today so Bob could get on the road, the kitchen is clean, the house is quite, I think I will spend the rest of the day doing nothing. It has been a long time since I have done nothing, I hope I remember how to do it!! I have plenty I could be doing, a bushel of apples await me in the garage, 6 more pie pumpkins greet me when I come in the door, the sweet potato's are waiting their turn in the dehydrator and the scrap room is in a mess again. But it can all wait, I need a long nap and a do nothing evening.
On to the pumpkin post!!

Picked these 4 Pie Pumpkins up last week at the market, none of ours made it :( We will try again next year in a new spot we will be working on over the fall and winter. Notice pie pumpkins are not bright orange like carving pumpkins.

Gave them a good scrubbing and double wrapped them in heavy foil and baked for 3 hours (wasn't sure how long to bake them). You should always place a drip pan under them or you will have a mess in your oven (I speak from experience) I had a drip pan setting on the counter but forgot to put it in the oven, UGH, I now know my fancy stoves self cleaning feature works well.

Once the pumpkins are baked and cooled, you remove the seeds and stringy stuff then scoop out the pulp. This is a messy job, so messy I couldn't take a photo, I had pumpkin pulp every where. Now whip up a truly fresh pumpkin pie!! Yummy Notice my crappy pie shell? Mine rarely turn out looking very good but at least it taste good.

The rest of the pulp was dehydrated, I let it dry most of the day and overnight, in the morning I ran all of it through the blender, came out the consistency of corn meal. It will take 1/2 cup of the dried pumpkin to make a pie, just add 2 cups of hot water to reconstitute it. The 4 pumpkins I had worked out to be 6 1/2 pies. Picked up more pie pumpkins over the weekend so I will keep working on filling this jar before pumpkin season is over. But not today, I need sleep!!