Fresh Pumpkin Pie

My favorite recipe for pumpkin pie uses fresh roasted, pureed pumpkin. It is amazing, worth the {small} effort and incomparable to canned pumpkin (blech). When H-Bomb was little, I would serve him the roasted, pureed pumpkin for dinner. As he grew bigger, he would eat chunks of roasted pumpkin as fast as I could serve them up. We have done everything from saving and roasting scraps from Halloween Jack-O-Lanterns to buying special-marked "pie pumpkins." I have also substituted butternut squash in this recipe. All of the ways are delicious in this recipe, every single time.

The original recipe comes from the Moosewood Cookbook, a continuing source of inspiration.

Use your favorite pie crust recipe, or reddquilter's or Marlow's, or Pate Brisee. You choose.

*To roast the pumpkin, cut off the top and halve pumpkin. Scrape out seeds (reserve for roasting separately!) and most of the strings. Place face up on a large sheet pan, and bake at 350 degrees F until the flesh is soft (easy to stick a fork in), about 45 minutes or so. When done, peel off all the skin and puree in a blender or food processor, in batches if you've roasted a lot of pumpkin. You can find pictures of this process here.

You can also freeze the pumpkin puree, in baggies pre-measured for the exact quantity of your favorite recipe (3 cups!) and just take it out and thaw it overnight in the refrigerator before you need to make your pie. Be aware that it may take extra time to bake if you use frozen puree. I have also successfully frozen the peeled roasted pumpkin. (and just puree when you need some)


No-Fault Pumpkin Pie

20 minutes to prepare; 50 minutes to bake
Yield: 1 compact 9-inch pie (about 6 to 8 servings)

* I usually end up with a 10-inch pie, filled to the brim! Whenever there is a range of spice amounts listed, I use the larger of the two measurements.


Filling:
3 cups roasted, pureed pumpkin or squash
3 tablespoons white sugar
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons molasses
1/2 teaspoon cloves or allspice
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 1/2 to 2 teaspoons powdered ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 beaten eggs
1 1/2 cups evaporated milk (lowfat ok)

1 unbaked 9- or 10-inch pie crust (see above for recipe links)

Optional Toppings:
whipped cream with a little sugar and rum
whipped cream with a little sugar and vanilla
vanilla ice cream

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

2. Place pumpkin or squash puree in a medium-sized bowl, and add all other filling ingredients. Beat until smooth.

3. Spread into the pie crust and bake at 375 degrees F for 10 minutes. Turn the oven down to 350 and bake another 40 minutes, or until the pie is firm in the center when shaken lightly.

**Sometimes this pie takes much longer to bake...with the previously frozen puree, it took twice as long to bake the pie, but it was perfect when it FINALLY came out of the oven!

4. Cool at least to room temperature before serving. This pie tastes very good chilled, with rum- or vanilla-spiked whipped cream, or some high-quality vanilla ice cream.