I have bought a bunch of sugar pumpkins and today I roasted some of them so that I could start making some pumpkin butter tomorrow and pumpkin smoothies! Yummy!!!
Pick sugar pumpkins that feel heavy for their size, these will have the most pulp in them.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
I start by slicing them thru the middle.
Scoop the seeds out. Put the seeds in a colander to save for roasted pumpkin seeds. Put upside down on your baking sheet. Put them in the oven and then add 2 cups of water to the bottom of the pan. Cook for 30 minutes or until tender when pierced with a fork.
Be careful when taking them out of the oven, the steam can quickly burn you if you are not careful. Drain off the water and let the pumpkins cool. Scoop the pumpkin pulp out into a bowl. At this point you can mash it and measure it into freezer bags for pies, breads, basically whatever you can think of. I usually weight mine into 1 lb. bags or measure 1 and 2 cup bags. It really depends on what I think I am going to use it for.
If you want to roast the seeds, rinse and clean the seeds of all of the goopy stuff. So technical but for lack of a better word, it works. Rinse well and let drain. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Spread seeds out in a single layer. Give them a spray of the cooking spray. Sprinkle with salt. Stir. Roast at 350 for about 20 minutes. Take out and see if they are salty enough by tasting a couple. Usually at this point I usually give them a quick spray of cooking spray and add a little more salt. Roast for 5 more minutes or until seeds start turning golden brown.
