Archie.

I was trying to think of a terribly witty name for my pumpkin. I think Jack is just too cliche. I needed something with pizazz, something with style. Um yeah. I got nothing. The best I could come up with was Archie...orange hair, orange pumpkin. A sad, sad attempt at wittiness. Although really, there is a slight resemblance...

Source: Comic Con International

Regardless of his name, Archie has served me well. He has been an overachiever in the world of pumpkins. He definitely would have made the honor roll in my class. As if he isn't the most picturesque pumpkin ever!
I felt slightly guilty sticking his pretty self into the oven. I watched him turn into a sad brown version of himself. Perhaps a similar story to that of many 60 year old women who live in California. You know the types, platinum blonde hair, leathery skin, most often accompanied by a whiskey voice. Classic.

I put Archie on a baking sheet, set the oven to 300°, and left him alone for 2 hours. This is what he ended up looking like.

*Caution: grotesque pumpkin pictures below.
Not too pretty, at all. This is about halfway through the "carving" process. The roasting made it surprisingly easy to separate the skin, pumpkin meat, and seeds. I just kept cutting him into quarters and scraping out the stringy junk and then scooping the meat into a separate bowl. This all took place on my stove, which was not entirely brilliant. I let it cool off on the stove top, which resulted in a surprising amount of liquid on the baking sheet, making it tricky to move. Hence the stove top disaster.
If you'll remember, this pumpkin cost me a whopping $4 (Plus, I got 15% off of that!). I plunked him on our bathroom scale which reported his weight at 17lbs. I'm a little suspicious of that weight, but definitely somewhere between 10-20 lbs.

So Archie, my $4 pumpkin, gifted me with 21.5 cups of pumpkin meat!

I started out by using my food processor attachment for my Cuisinart hand blender, but quickly realized this was a job for a more substantial machine. That's where the husband and his Robot Coupe came in. For the most part, I despise this machine. It takes up a significant amount of space in my pantry, I never use it...and my husband rarely uses it. So why do we have it again? Oh right...for my yearly pumpkin puree fest.

Look at all that pumpkiny goodness!
I made a batch of pumpkin cookies (which used 1 Cup of pumpkin puree, and resulted in 48 cookies), but the rest I plan to freeze in sandwich Ziploc bags to use for baking, soups and whatever else I can figure out to stick pumpkin in.

Thanks Avenue Homesteader for the great idea! She also has a recipe for roasting pumpkin seeds, which we will be doing as well. Brings back lots of Hallowe'en memories of my Mom roasting this delicious snack.