From Pumpkin To Pie In Twelve Easy Steps

First, find a friend who is willing to let you work for vegetables, and is willing to let you share the harvest even when there are only two pumpkins.

Admire the fruits of you labour.

Butcher with care. Preferably outside, as you don't want to get guts all over the kitchen.

Mind your fingers!

Plan on saving the seeds.

Wonder at absence of seeds and the presence of strange, unidentifiable globs. Did this one grow too close to the power lines?

Salvage the few seeds you find, and hope for better luck next year.

Cut the pumpkins into chunks and head to the kitchen.

Add some water to the bottom of the roasting pan, cover (in this case with foil, as the lid would no longer fit on the pan) and bake until the flesh is soft.

Scoop the flesh from the pumpkin pieces and puree, first with a mixer, then with an immersion blender. (The contents of the bowl represent less than half of the puree we got from those two pumpkins. L kept the contents of the other bowl. This was mine.)

Transfer pureed pumpkin to containers and freeze. Don't attempt to can your pureed pumpkin. Apparently home-canned pumpkin is an excellent way to promote botulism. Remember to reserve one container for your pie. (These jars contain the puree from the bowl in the picture above. The jar on the right is homemade cranberry sauce from L at Sleeping Cougar. Yum!)

Homemade pumpkin puree is much more watery than it's store-bought counterparts. Use less liquid in your pie recipe, or consider draining your pumpkin before preparing the filling.

(I used less liquid, and I still had to let the cooked pie dry in the oven on a low temperature. It gave us time to digest the wonderful turkey dinner hubby prepared.)

Enjoy your pie!