wilkes

How to Prepare the pumpkin for cooking
Wash the exterior of the pumpkin in cool or warm water, no soap.
Cut the pumpkin in half. A serrated knife and a sawing motion works best - a smooth knife is more likely to slip and hurt you!
- Scoop out the seeds...
And scrape the insides. You want to get out that stringy, dangly stuff that coats the inside surface. I find a heavy ice cream scoop works great for this.
Note: SAVE THE SEEDS:
The seeds can be used either to plant pumpkins next year, or roasted to eat this year!
Place them in a bowl of water and rub them between your hands then pick out the orange buts (throw that away) and drain off the water.
Spread them out on a clean towel or paper towel to dry and they're ready to save for next year's planting or roast.
Put it in a microwaveable bowl
Remove the stem, and put the pumpkin into a microwaveable. You may need to cut the pumpkin further to make it fit. The fewer the number of pieces, the easier it will to scoop out the cooked pumpkin afterwards.
Put a couple of inches of water in the bowl, cover it, and put in the microwave.
Cook the pumpkin until soft
Cook for 15 minutes on high, check to see if it is soft, then repeat in smaller increments of time until it is soft enough to scoop the innards out. Normally it takes 20 or 30 minutes in total.Note: You CAN cook it on the stovetop; it will just take longer (almost twice as long)
Scoop out the cooked pumpkin
Using a broad, smooth spoon, (such as a tablespoon) gently lift and scoop the cooked pumpkin out of the skin. It should separate easily an in fairly large chucks, if the pumpkin is cooked enough.
Puree the pumpkin
To get a nice, smooth consistency, I use a Pillsbury hand blender. A regular blender works, too (unless you made a few frozen daiquiris and drank them first..). Or even just a hand mixer with time and patience.
With the hand blender, it just takes 2 or 3 minutes!
Done with the pumpkin!
The pumpkin is now cooked and ready for the pie recipe.
It's ready to pop in the fridge or freezer (just pack it containers, like Ziploc bags or plastic containers, exclude as much air as you can, and freeze it!)

Yeah, I have a huge pumpkin left that I never cut. I was wondering how to make them from scratch like that, too.

Pumpkin Pie
1 16-oz. can pumpkin or 2 cups cooked pumpkin
3/4 cup sugar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground ginger
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. salt
3 eggs
2/3 cup evaporated milk
1/2 cup milk
Prepared Pie crust
For those of you that may not know, canned pumpkin is pumpkin
puree, usually with some extra flavorings added. Combine pumpkin,
sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt in a bowl. Add eggs and beat
eggs into pumpkin mixture with a fork. Add evaporated milk and milk
and mix well. Place in pie crust (cover the edge of the crust with
aluminum foil to prevent burning) and bake for 25 minutes in 375
degree oven. Remove foil from crust and bake for another 30 minutes
or until a knife comes out clean when inserted into the pie.

I hav a cpl pumpkins left over from decorations, how do I make a pie with them?