If you find yourself taking care of sick kids, and have an extra “pie pumpkin” (also called sugar pumpkin) on hand, then maybe you’d like to make a little homemade pumpkin puree while the kids are vegging out on the couch and watching Baby Einstein videos. Yes, I piled up the Baby Einsteins on the counter to return them, but my son rediscovered them and wants to watch them all. Maybe it’s his fever that makes them more interesting than they really are.

Anyway, yesterday (sick kid day #1), I carved a jack-o-lantern, roasted the seeds, and baked the pie pumpkin. I know. It was the day after Halloween, but better late than never. I remembered reading about making your own pumpkin puree on Stephmodo last year and thought I’d give it a try. I followed her recipe to cut the pumpkin in quarters and pop it in the oven on 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

After they cooled a bit, I scraped off the seeds and stringy stuff, then scooped the pumpkin “meat” into the blender.

I’m sure a food processor would work better, but I don’t own one. So I did a little blending (despite the kids’ shouting that they couldn’t hear their video when I turned on the blender), then plopped the pumpkin puree into a colander over another bowl to drain for 18-24 hours.

I love the color. It also made me wish I made more homemade baby food when my kids were babies. But I digress. I put the pumpkin colander in the fridge until this afternoon (sick kid day #2) when I took it out and made these delicious pumpkin cheesecake bars. Here’s the happy homemade puree joining it’s ingredient friends:

I saved the eggs for the last ingredient, then realized I had no eggs. Google told me that I could put in a banana instead of the 2 eggs, so I did — whichwas a little sad for the pumpkin puree, because the banana kind of stole the show. But I still ate a whole lot of pumpkin banana cheesecake bars today. Yes, Kim. I’ll make more when you’re here for the holidays