Dehydrating and Rehydrating a Pumpkin

My dad grows pumpkins, my mom and I cook pumpkins. If there is a variety of vine that only produces a few pumpkins, I've never heard of it. I doubt we would grow it, but the problem is, you can only cook so many at a time. Enter the giant 10 rack LEM dehydrator I got for Christmas last year. It solves a lot of problems. Like "The deer meat is taking over and there's no room for anything else in the freezer!" The solution to this problem lies with the dehydrator. 2 cups of frozen pumpkin can instead be stored as 1/2 cup of pumpkin powder.

How do I do this glorious thing, you ask? Bake, pressure cook, etc your pumpkin, butternut squash or whatnot as you would for baking a pie or sweet bread. Remove seeds, skin, etc. Season the seeds and toss them in with the drying pumpkin if you so wish. Smash the pumpkin and spread  it on the trays. Either use a fruit roll tray, some wax paper or a gallon freezer bag to keep it from going through the holes. Don't put it too thick (ie 1/2 an inch), but get enough to count. 1/4" is a good thickness. Pop it in the dehydrator at 135ish until it's brittle. Living in south Louisiana, my humidity greatly affects the timing of this type of thing.

Once it's nice and crisp, pull it out and toss it in the blender until you have a nice powder. Dump it in a bag or mason jar and seal. To rehydrate add 2 cups boiling water to 1/2 cup of powder. Leave it sit till thickened and cooled. Use like normal pumpkin fresh from the oven. It takes a quarter of the space, and doesn't have to be frozen. That gives it a huge advantage at my house.

I'm going to be drying a few over the weekend if all goes as planned, so I can get a few pictures and post them.