Pumpkin pie, checked off the to do list

Tags

postaday2016, pumpkin pie

Pumpkin pie is easily my favorite thing to bake for Thanksgiving. I have made other types of pie over the years, but ever since I discovered my recipe, which is a combination of a recipe from a newspaper my husband found and the recipe from the Libby pumpkin purée can, I have always made it a point to bake at least one pumpkin pie amongst whichever other pie I decided to experiment with that year, whether it was apple or pear. I can’t remember when I started baking pumpkin pie, I think it was when we moved up to Blandford and into our house, 1995 or so, maybe a year or two later.

I think it’s pretty funny that I grew up not having pumpkin pie as a part of the Thanksgiving feast. We celebrated Thanksgiving as many immigrant families do, adapting our French culinary tastes and sensibilities to the idea of Thanksgiving, which of course is a day of grace and gratitude. Our dessert for Thanksgiving was always a Saint Honoré, a gorgeous concoction of flaky dough, cream puff dough with tons of vanilla pastry cream and whipped cream, a delicious ending to our French version of turkey day, which we always looked forward to because no matter where you are from, it is a beautiful sentiment to celebrate with your family.

I know my first pumpkin pie was eaten at my mother-in-law’s house, I remember thinking it was intriguing and my curiosity was piqued so I had to find recipes to make my own. When my husband found the newspaper recipe, I think I made my first completely from scratch using that recipe. I’m pretty sure I married the two recipes when I decided to stop roasting the actual pumpkin and use Libby’s pumpkin purée and I never looked back.

My homemade pumpkin pie, warts and all

Tags

baking, homemade pie crust, postaday2012, pumpkin pie, recipe

 

Here is my homemade pumpkin pie. My hubby took the picture, we switched cell phones plans and I haven’t gotten a cell phone yet, which is fine by me since I dislike them so much, but I haven’t been uploading any photos with my posts and I do miss that aspect of the phone. I am deciding which way to go for a small easy to use camera and the jury is still out.

Back to the pumpkin pie, I don’t know why the small area near the edge got disfigured during the baking process, it didn’t taste any differently than the rest of the pie so I don’t know what happened there. I was disappointed because it does ruin the overall look of the pie, definitely wouldn’t win any blue ribbons, however, if you are only concerned with taste, than it was definitely a winner.

The recipe is very easy; I combined two recipes into one to get the light almost flan like texture to the pie. The pie dough is a flaky pastry dough with butter, Crisco, flour, salt and ice water. The filling is also very simple; 4 eggs, one big can of pumpkin puree, 1/2 cup of sugar, 1/2 cup of light brown sugar, one can of evaporated milk, 1 2/3 cups of heavy cream, 1/2 tsp of ground cloves, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp of ground nutmeg, 1/2 tsp ground all spice and 1 tsp ground ginger; mix it all together and you have enough for two pies. Your oven should be pre-heated at 425 and after 15 minutes you put it down to 350 for 30 to 35 minutes more. The kitchen does smell heavenly at this point, the aromas of cinnamon and nutmeg float in the air, it makes you feel warm and cozy.

On another note, I just passed the 2000 mark of posts to this blog. A small milestone and I am very happy about it. Hooray for me!

Gearing up for Thanksgiving

Tags

cooking, family, postaday2012, pumpkin pie, Thanksgiving, turkey

Today I was busy, busy, busy. I was non stop until 6:00 this evening. Jack and I woke up at 7:00, I had my oatmeal and my pot of coffee while reading all of the publications that I receive on my e-mail and then I wrote a comment on Huffington Post regarding Grover Norquist and his anti-tax pledges and the impact that has on negotiations in Washington D.C related to the “fiscal cliff” and I cross posted the comment to my political blog A Progressive’s Thoughts. I then answered a prompt from Plinkie and published it on WordPress. After finishing my writing for the day, I took Jack for his mile walk and emptied out the fireplace, reloaded the living room, the library and the garage with wood. The front yard needed some sprucing up so I trimmed back the wild grasses and the spent chrysanthemums. I took Jack back out for his second walk, prepared his dog food bowl for later and made the long list of groceries needed for the feast for tomorrow. I also made enough pastry dough for two pies and put it in the refrigerator to rest for later this afternoon.

This got me to 11:30 which meant that I was running almost late. I ate lunch fairly quickly because I wanted to leave before twelve, I had quite a bit of food shopping to do besides other errands and I wanted to have everything done before my doctor’s appointment at 2:30 this afternoon. My pumpkin pies were going to be baked this afternoon after my doctor’s visit so I didn’t want to dilly-dally after the doctor’s, I wanted to get home and bake. The house needed some good smells, especially the ones that start drifting out of the oven door; cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, cloves, ginger and pumpkin. It’s a mixture of fall, warmth, home and family; all the things that mean Thanksgiving.

Right now writing this, I am happy to report that the pies came out wonderfully. I got all of my errands done with more than enough time to be punctual for the dermatologist, who was on time himself. My visit lasted all of five minutes, he took a picture of a troublesome mole with the plan to revisit it in six months. I got home unloaded the groceries, fed Jack, walked him again, made the pies, stripped the beds, did the laundry and kept an eye on the pies and welcomed my hubby and the baby girl home. Like I said busy, busy, busy and tomorrow will be no different.