our monster pumpkin

Our pumpkin plant this year only really grew one pumpkin (that didn't rot).  We were totally okay with that, because it was huge.  I couldn't lift it.  Stewart thinks it weighed 50-60lbs.  The only problem is, we had a little pumpkin mishap.

One evening Stew and I went out to lift up the half-ripened pumpkin and place a piece of plywood underneath, to lessen the chances of it rotting.  (I had read this would help; now I am skeptical!)  As he lifted it, we heard it snap off the vine!  We were so upset.  We went inside and quickly googled "how to ripen pumpkin off the vine".

It turns out that you just need to leave it in the sun.  One half was orange already, the other was greenish-white.  We left it for about 3-4 weeks, and it did eventually all turn orange.  Hurray!

A couple days ago we decided to finally cut and cook the monster pumpkin.

our kids, giving some perspective as the the size of it

each piece was about a foot long - it filled our kids table

I had 4 trays full of pumpkin pieces!

for perspective: one piece in a standard 8-10" frying pan

Yesterday I finally finished pureeing and freezing all the pumpkin.  While it was fresh, I made 2 batches of pumpkin muffins, three dozen pumpkin cookies, and several meals of baby food for Jackson.  I now have 17 bags of pumpkin puree in my freezer for baking, ranging from 1-4 cups each.  I'm pretty pumped about it.

Hello, pumpkin pie!!!