Roasted Pumpkin Seeds and Yummy Puree

I went to the grocery store wanting to get a few cans of Pumpkin puree to use in some recipes.  I usually have a few cans in my pantry, but last year pumpkin was hard to find and pricey, so I didn't have any.  My jaw dropped when I saw the price.  The bigger can was over $3.00!  And, the little one was close to $3.00.  There was no way I was paying that.  It's soooo not in my grocery budget.  I went home thinking maybe I could can some myself.  And, sure shooting... you can!  But, I would need a pressure canner which I still don't have.  But, I can freeze it like I do my butternut squash.  In the end I got just under 4lbs of fresh pureed pumpkin.  I immediately made some yummy pumpkin bread with it.  It was amazing!

 

Down at the grocer store yesterday I saw some sweet pumpkin / pie pumpkins for $1.00 each.  I bought 2 and brought them home to cook em up.  What fun we had!  I wanted to use the whole pumpkin, so I decided to try making some toasted pumpkin seeds too.  I sliced up the pumpkins and took out all the seeds.  Roasted them in the oven at 400' for about 40 minutes.  As they were cooking and cooling I asked Rachel to help with the seeds.  She had so much fun getting them cleaned and ready.  After cleaned and dried they went into a 400' oven.  I cooked them a bit to long so some of them were very brown. (I was distracted by the canning of asparagus) Hubby loved those, but next time I'll watch closer.  I sprinkled them with some kosher salt and we all loved them.  Even the kids.  They were eating them by the handful.  You can bet I'll be using seeds from all my squashes from now on.