Pumpkin (or winter squash) pie recipe

[Janet Jinkner]

I can't imagine anyone never having had pumpkin pie. We eat them as breakfast food when we can. Most fruit (or vegetable) pies are much better for you for breakfast than most of the breakfast cereals you can buy in the store.

This is the only recipe I've found that does not call for a can of pumpkin from the store. It makes it easier if you are using your own home-grown pumpkin. Remember, you can substitute any kind of winter squash for the pumpkin.

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Pumpkin Pie

ingredients:

1 cup mashed pumkin
1 1/2 teaspoon flour
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 cups milk
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt
pastry for a large 1-crust pie

Combine squash, flour, sugar, eggs and spices. Beat until smooth. scald the milk with the butter in it. Add the milk to the squash mixture and pour into a pastry-lined 9-inch pie pan. Bake at 425F (218C) for 15 minutes. Reduce heat to 350F (177C) and bake for 40 minutes longer or until a knife blade inserted about 2 inches from the center of the pie comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

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We love this recipe, but we always find that we have to cook it at 350F for much longer than the time given here.

Does anybody else have any good recipes for pumpkin or squash pie? Poor Lori has never had pumpkin pie.

[Nita]

Winter squash is one or our survival foods. I grow Sweet Meat which is an heirloom from our climate (PNW) dry summers, but cool nights. I have saved the seeds from these for years, getting a great squash that tastes great and keeps until May. What we like is that after curing these squash keep well. I don't have to can, or freeze them, so no extra hidden costs of electricity or labor.

Here's our pie recipe:

2 - 8" pies or just bake as a custard if you don't want the crust.

4 cups pumpkin or squash puree
2 T butter
1/2 c granulated sugar
1/2 c brown sugar
1/2 t salt
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ground ginger
1/4 nutmeg
1/4 cloves
1 egg, beaten
2 c milk

Melt butter in large skillet, and add pumpkin puree, stirring well to mix. Take off heat. Combine sugars, and spices, blend, and add egg and milk. Combine cooled pumpkin/butter with sugar, spices, egg and milk mixture. Pour into pie shells and bake at 400*F for one hour or until knife comes out clean.

Here is a blog post about our squash yield this year:
http://matronofhusbandry.wordpress.com/2008/10/12/sweet-meat/

[Lori]

My daughter will be so excited. We often hear references to pumpkin pie on the american TV shows and we've never really understood what they are or how they taste. We really don't have an equivalent. I saw years ago a recipe for sweet potatoes (yams) baked in coca cola. There's one I'd like to collect....in return I will send you all a recipe for pumpkin scones - a food icon in our state where the state premier used to promote these scones as a bit of a joke that carried on. Wonderful with treacle on top. Will post that when I get home to my recipe books. Thanks again.

[Janet Jinkner]

I look forward to getting your recipe for pumpkin scones. Most of us here in the states think only of pumpkin pie and Jack O'Lanterns when we think of pumpkin.

[FarmerAmber]

I noticed that you don't mention straining the pumkin before using it. The first pumkin pie we made with our own pumkin wouldn't set up no matter how long we cooked it. We started baking the pumkin first (usually the ones that were starting to go bad anyway), then squeezing the water out through a cheesecloth (actually a piece of old cotton T-shirt) before we baked with it. Now the pies are nice and firm and don't take as long to bake. Has anyone else had this problem?

[Janet Jinkner]

I'm sorry. I just assumed that everyone knew that the pumpkin was baked first to make it soft before cooking with it. I have always cut mine in half, or smaller if they were very big, then put them on a cookie sheet (with raised edges) to bake. The juices drain down into the pan and evaporate. Sometimes with a very juicy pumpkin you do need to drain the juice off it. And no matter WHAT Harry Potter says, pumpkin juice does not taste good.

I think that some cookbooks do say you need to bake the pumpkin first, but I just didn't think to mention it.

[FarmerAmber]

Its funny that you say that, because I think that's exactly what happened to us. We used a recipe out of an old Amish cookbook and it was just like you said - they assumed everyone knew you had to bake and drain pumkin before putting it in the pie. We didn't until we did it the other way. We fix ours now the same way you do - cut it in half, bake for an hour or so (until soft), then scoop it out and we squeeze the liquid out. We like a thick pumkin mix though. We've also found that if you freeze the pumkin after cooking, then drain it when it thaws more water will come out of it. We had wonderful thick, fluffy pies from some pumkin we had frozen and treated that way. Hmmmm....I may have to do some baking tonight....

[Lori]

Pumpkin Scones -

1 cup cold mashed pumpkin (boiled and mashed with a little butter, let cool)
1 Tablespoon butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 3/4 cups SR flour
pinch of salt

Cream butter and sugar, beat in egg. Add pumpkin and beat. Add flour. If too dry add a little water. Bake in the top of a hot oven.

Now - the scones. Some people like to use a round scone cutter and put individual scones onto a baking slide to bake. I don't because it takes too much time and you have to make the mix too dry and the scones don't keep well. So I grease a scone tray which is a flat tray with low sides and pour the mix in like cake batter. Using a knife dipped in flour, I score the mix into square shapes a couple of inches square and bake like that. So the mix has to be not quite as wet as cake batter but not as dry as pastry. Goes golden on top and sounds hollow when tapped - about 20 - 25 minutes. Turn out, cut into scones, split in the middle and eat with butter and maybe syrup or honey.

[Alison Kerr]

These recipes sound yummy. Be sure to cook the pumpkin/squash seeds if you are not saving them for planting. For years I did what I'd seen my mom do and threw away seeds from melons and pumpkins. One day I found a recipe for roasting the seeds and now I will never throw them away again. What a waste that was! I think my mom didn't know if they were safe to eat. They are tasty and crunchy and no doubt good for you :-)

I'm not a great fan of squash because it's not something I grew up with, but I do like acorn squash a lot. And of course pumpkin pie!