Make a Pumpkin Pie!

What to do with that old Halloween pumpkin? Make pumpkin pie, of course! It’s one of the seasonal, sentimental foods that Americans really miss in England. And since they don’t routinely sell tinned (canned) pumpkin pie filling in the supermarkets, that means you have to make your own filling.

This was a cooking pumpkin: walls 3" thick!

Hardest part is actually cutting up the pumpkin. I used a whole pumpkin (not with a funny face) that is particularly bred for pie – like Bramley apples are specifically cooking apples that are great in apple pie. It was really a tough pumpkin, three inches thick in places. I had to use a hatchet to break it open. And you can see from the picture that I made two half-hearted attempts with the hatchet that only sliced off conchoidal disks from the surface. The third try went straight in.

After cutting up the pumpkin and scooping out the seeds, separate the seeds as much as possible from the fibers. Spread the seeds for roasting on a flat baking tray and coat with salad oil. Bake the pumpkin pieces in the oven at 350° for 1.5 hours. The seeds can be started with the pumpkin, but they must be stirred occasionally and not allowed to burn, taking much less time to roast than the pumpkin.

Once baked, the pulp can easily be scooped from the skin (peeling a pumpkin beforehand with a vegetable peeler is a thankless and usually unsuccessful task). Use at least an 8-inch diameter pumpkin for 1.5 to 2 8-oz cups of pulp. The following recipe is in American measures:

Take 2 cups baked pumpkin pulp and mash with a potato masher; if it's stringy, then puree it in a blender or food processor. Put the puree in a strainer and squeeze out most of the moisture or stir it in saucepan at medium heat to evaporate as much liquid as possible.

Combine and blend dry ingredients:

½ cup sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger powder

Add to the dry ingredients:

3 eggs, well beaten

The reduced pumpkin pulp

1 cup milk

Pour mixture into an unbaked pie shell and

Bake at 350°F for about 40–50 minutes

Top with whipped cream before serving, or serve with vanilla ice cream!