Pumpkin Puree

Everyone in America is sort of lucky.  Why?  Pumpkin comes in a can!  There are so many different canned pumpkin it's crazy!  Here in England we're not so lucky but don't worry - it's really not that hard to make pumpkin puree and if you make it yourself it doesn't have all the rubbish that comes with something that lives in a can!

Pick a nice looking pumpkin.  I didn't need a lot for the recipe I was planning so I picked a small one - I stupidly didn't take note of the weight but it was about the size of a small cantaloupe melon.

Please be careful when you cut through a pumpkin - you need a bit of force and a big knife to slice all the way through and that can sometimes result in injuries!

Preheat oven to 205C (fan oven).

I sliced my pumpkin in half and then in quarters then halved again so I had some big chunks of pumpkin.  Scoop out all of the seeds and stringy innards - the seeds can be used later to roast and used as a wonderful (and healthy!) snack.

This is optional but as I was baking with cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg I wanted to keep the spices going so studded each piece of pumpkin with a couple of cloves.

Place the pumpkin chunks on a baking tray and bake for around 40 minutes or until soft.

Once cooled use a fork to scrape the roasted pumpkin from the skin and then use a food processor or stick blender to whizz up the pumpkin into delicious puree!