Pies from Pumpkins

We had acquired several "pie" pumpkins while we were back in Illinois these past few weeks. I decided to try my hand at making pumpkin pie from actual pumpkins. First, I didn't realize these smaller pumpkins were specifically for making pies. They are sweeter and less grainy than carving pumpkins. You can use carving pumpkins, but you have to add more sugar. Learn something new every day.

To start, I rinsed off the marker my kids used to decorate them then cut them in half, placed them face down on a cookie sheet and baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes.


When they were soft, kind of like a cooked potato, I scooped out the stringy stuff and seeds and put them aside. I went through them later to pull out seeds for planting more next season. After that, I took a spoon and ran it around the shell, separating the "meat" from the shell. It comes off pretty easily.

Once all the pumpkins were emptied, I used my KitchenAid and put it on the whisk for about 15 minutes. I had to keep the speed pretty low or it would splash. There are more sophisticated ways of doing this, but I don' have a sieve or food processor, so I settled for good old fashioned mixer.

Once it was pretty well pureed, I took out the whisk and there was a bunch of glop stuck to it. At first, I tried to pull it off to use it, but then realized, it was all stringy and hard. It turned out to be a good thing that the mixer caught all that and kept it separate, so I just threw it away. the rest was mostly smooth and ready to make into pumpkin pie filling. This is the recipe I used, there are MANY out there to choose from, but I chose this one and was happy with the outcome:

3 eggs

1 1/2 cup pumpkin

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. ginger

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 cup milk

2 tsp. melted butter

1 Tbsp. flour

In a clean empty bowl, beat eggs well. Add pumpkin, sugars, and spices, mix. Add milk, mix. Add the flour and the melted butter, mix well.

It was very runny when I was done mixing it and that's OK. I will advise that if your pumpkin puree had any water that you could pour off, do. My pie was a little wet in the end.

I chose to not make my own pie crust so I rolled out my refrigerated one and emptied my filling into it. Cover the edges with foil so they don't burn and you are ready for the oven. Bake at 450 for the first 15 minutes, then lower to 350 for another 45 - 60 minutes. A knife inserted should come out clean. I baked mine closer to the hour.

Voila! Pie from scratch. What I did find is that the next day, it had settle more and wasn't "wet" at all. Even though it was "wet" the first day, it was still good, just a different texture. It was really good and what you would expect a pumpkin pie to be the next day. My four small pumpkins made enough for 3 pies. They were really small so I'm guessing an average pie pumpkin would make 2 pies.

I don't think I would normally do this, but I was glad that I did and that now I know how. I'm sure on those Thanksgiving's of old, a pumpkin pie was a real treat!