pie-eyed

Pie. Oh my gosh. In the past I've confessed to a general weakness for white flour and baking powder biscuits, but another way to render me helpless is to offer me pie.

I love many kinds of pie. The first time I ever met my great-grandmother, she had just baked a cherry pie. I'd never had it before, and now many years later I'll sometimes opt for the cherry pie and think of Great Grandma. Pecan pie makes me think of my dad, who loves it but avoids it now because he's also avoiding diabetes (and doing a good job, by the way. Good going, Dad). I've always loved mince pie, and it's just not an American Christmas without a mince pie on the table. During our first Christmas living here 'way out West, the Emperor and I couldn't get a single jar of mince, so I got out the old Betty Crocker and made it from scratch (it's not too hard to make and tastes pretty good). And finally, I love pumpkin pie.

Last year I bought one of those small pumpkins at the store and used it for decoration. At the end of Autumn, I picked it up and looked more closely: there was a recipe stuck to the bottom and I thought, what the heck! Let's try scratch pumpkin pie! That pie recipe turnd out to make the best pumpkin pie I'd ever had -- the filling has a stronger texture and a deeper flavor, and it's not as sweet as when you use the stuff in the can. Well, tonight we had a command performance at a pot luck, and I made two of those scratch pumpkin pies.

First, you get one or two of those little "pie pumpkins."

And below is the label that was stuck to the bottom. Follow this recipe to the letter -- I did, except that I left out the cloves. But the pie was fine.

Two of those little pumpkins make enough pureed pumpkin flesh to fill three pies. I baked two for the potluck, and packed the remaining pulp into a ziplock bag and popped it into the freezer. Voila! Punkin' pies.

I have four more of those little pumpkins decorating my living room. Hopefully I'll be able to roast them before we leave for over the pond.

Anyway, try this recipe. You'll never go back to canned again!

Oh, I have to confess... I used roll-em-out crust dough. Normally I'd run this recipe up in the food processor, and use mostly whole-wheat flour for it, but I was under a time crunch this time and had to book through the chore. But nobody at the potluck noticed, although several did want to know where to find the recipe.