Last week’s Midweek Snack recipe featured a rich and tasty pumpkin-infused rice crispy treat, which called for canned pumpkin. Cooking with canned pumpkin is wonderful, but so many tasty season recipes taste even better with fresh pumpkin. It makes simple pumpkin pies taste richer and creamier; it adds a soft, richness to baked good.

It may seem intimidating to bake with fresh pumpkin, but it’s incredibly easy and once you get the hang of it you’ll likely never use canned pumpkin again!

So here are the basic steps:

1. Find a pie pumpkin in the farmers market or grocery store. These are the smaller ones that usually find in the produce.

2. Cut in half with knife, pry open pumpkin, and scoop out the seeds (you can save these for roasting!)

3. Poor a tiny bit of water into a casserole dish and face the two halves face down in the water.

4. Bake at 375 for about 1 1/2 hours.

5. You’re done! Scoop the pumpkin meat out of the skin and it’s ready to use!

Check back with us for this Wednesday’s Midweek Snack when we’ll feature another great season pumpkin recipe!