I Think I'm a Holiday Behind...

Though I don't think it's all my fault.  Thanks to Global Warming, our garden was alive until November, so we got things harvested a bit late and with everything else I needed to get done,

the pumpkins got pushed aside.  They do store fairly well, but Monday I noticed one of them was going bad, so yesterday I started on roasting pumpkins. 

Once, in my younger and more foolish days, I used to try to cut through their tough little skins with a knife.  Now I use the easier and FAR more fun bouncing-them-off-the-patio method.  When they're fresh, they don't bounce.  When they've aged a bit, they do, so it can take a couple tries, and is a lovely way to work out frustration....say, that of never getting rid of bronchitis, for instance.

I have also discovered that a grapefruit spoon works REALLY well for scraping the insides clean:

and I can now tell you that our oven has enough room to roast exactly 4 sugar pumpkins at a time.  This was a good thing to figure out before breaking open a fifth pumpkin, so I'm feeling proud of myself. 

It's been longer than I thought since I roasted pumpkins, so while I remembered that boiling the seeds in salt water before roasting them both flavors them and gets the remaining pumpkin gunk off of them,

I didn't use enough salt.  Oh well.  There are more pumpkins......

And what better way to celebrate fresh pumpkin puree than..

 

pumpkin muffins?  Okay, in a household which has never, ever made a pumpkin pie, that is..............