making pumpkin puree

we have a csa with a local farmer here in ohio and we've received a few pumpkins lately. i also wanted to make some pumpkin spice cold-process soap for the holidays and wanted to incorporate real pumpkins. so i made my own pumpkin puree using the farm fresh pumpkins. it's so simple to make pumpkin puree and it has to be nicer than buying canned, right? preheat your oven to 350 degrees and get out a roasting pan. cut your pumpkin in half and scoop out the seeds and stringy fibers. save your seeds so you can cook those with some butter and seasoning salt (i put the seeds on a cookie sheet and baked at the same time as the pumpkin for 45 minutes). place your pumpkin halves in the roasting pan with cut sides facing down. add 2 cups of water and bake for 90 minutes. scoop the flesh out of each pumpkin half and put in your food processor. blend this to a nice smooth puree finish and you're done. it's that simple. i used some of the puree in a soap recipe but you could make pumpkin pie with it as well i hear - i'm not a fan of pumpkin pie so i wouldn't really know.