Ally
What to do with the leftover pumpkins on your doorstep after Halloween, you ask? What about the piles and piles of leftover pumpkins on sale now at the grocery store? It’s a shame to throw them away or waste them, when they are so simple to cook up and use. Just one large pumpkin alone will yield more pumpkin puree than you’ll know what to do with! I made Pumpkin Pie Overnight Oats, pumpkin turkey chili, pumpkin muffins, roasted pumpkin seeds, and….Pumpkin Almond Butter Dog Treats for Chewy!!!!
How to Cook a Whole Pumpkin
It’s a little bit of extra work, but super simple to cook your pumpkins and make your own pumpkin puree! Here’s a good article for more detail, but I’ll give you the simplified version below.
- Preheat your oven to 425, (convection setting works great here for more even cooking if you have it!)
- Slice your pumpkin in half, and scoop out the seeds (you can save these and roast them!)
- Place the pumpkin halves face-down on a baking sheet and put in the oven
- I roasted my large pumpkin for 1 hour 15 min and a baby one for 30 minutes, to give you an idea. You want the skin the be browned and totally flexible when you press it.
- Let it cool before scooping out all the flesh from the skin. Then, puree it with a hand mixer or in a blender/ food processor!
- Use your pumpkin puree now, can it, or freeze it!
My sweet golden doodle has a sensitive tummy, and is gluten-free, dairy-free, and grain-free. SO high maintenance 😉 If you have a dog, you probably know that pumpkin is really good for their stomach, so I knew I needed to make him some homemade treats out of all this fresh pumpkin I had. I also love that these are frozen too because they last so much longer as he chews on them! It’s definitely more than just a treat, it’s a fun distraction for a while.
I mixed 1 part almond butter (any nut butter would work here, but make sure it’s JUST nuts and no sugar and additives) to 4 parts fresh pumpkin. Blended them with a hand mixer, and froze them into cubes! SO EASY! And he is completely obsessed with them. Turns out I’ll run through all this fresh pumpkin faster than I originally thought…
By the way, this is the fun ice cube tray I used for these. They make big, 2-inch cubes: 6-Cube Silicone Ice Tray
- 2 cups pumpkin puree (canned or homemade)
- ½ cup almond butter (or any nut butter)
- Blend together 1 part nut butter to 4 parts pumpkin puree using a blender or a mixer and bowl.
- Spoon mixture into an ice cube tray and freeze!
I can’t wait to make them for Lulu!
I might try this out in October it seem pretty good for my dog but she does have teeth problems but we will see
Almonds and almond butter can cause upset stomach in dogs due to high fat content. Uncertain exactly how much can make a dog sick but I chose to leave it out of their diet out of a abundance of caution.