Yesterday my kitchen helper and I processed a 21 pound pumpkin. It would have been amazing had we grown this zapallo (pumpkin), but, sadly, we purchased it from a local market. It was a big job!
First we had to compare how big it was to a coke can. It weighed 21 pounds and is probably the biggest one I've ever seen!
To start off, we had to get out a super sharp, big knife to cut it open. This guy wasn't going to fit whole in my oven! When I cut it open, I thought it made a cute little flower shape with each half.
It was surprising how many seeds were in it! There were some guts, but not as many as I thought there would be. It is possible this pumpkin is a little old - it has been sitting on my counter a few weeks! We scraped out all the guts and plan to plant some seeds and roast some seeds. The chickens will get some of the stringy parts.
This guy was too big to put on one pan in the toaster oven, so I had to do it in two batches. It took about 30-45 minutes for each half to cook. I had to cut some of it into pieces to make sure it was well done! It's hard to puree uncooked pumpkin! 😉
It was easy to tell when it was done because some of the orange parts were turning brown and the peel was shriveling up some and turning a brown color. After I let it cool off some, we scraped the inside out and set the peels to the side to feed to the chickens. This took quite some time since there was so much!
In the end, I ended up with a little over 5 pounds of puree from one half and 8 pounds from the other side! I measured out 1 cup of puree and put them in bags in the freezer. There were 16 total! I already used 2 this morning to make some yummy pumpkin pie!
I know in the United States is it pretty common to buy canned pumpkin. When I met my friend from South Africa here in Panama, she had never seen canned pumpkin. I had never processed a pumpkin before moving here, but now I see how easy and how much cheaper it is!
Do you buy canned pumpkin or make your own puree?
