Pumpkin Pie

There is nothing better than making a pumpkin pie from a fresh sugar pumpkin! This past week Ethan, Camille and I went to the pumpkin patch with Ethan's school and we were all given 1 sugar pumpkin. Ethan and Camille refused to let me bake up their pumpkins and decided to color them with markers but I searched the internet for pumpkin pie recipes and found the most amazing tasting pie recipe! It's from Love and Olive Oil. Find the recipe here, old fashioned pumpkin pie with bourbon whipped cream (I did not make the whipped cream.)

First things first, you have to roast the pumpkin. I preheated my oven to 350 degrees, cut my pumpkin in half, and scraped out the seeds and strings (a smaller pumpkin is better, they tend to be sweeter than the large ones.) Then I put the 2 halves into a casserole dish, face down with about 1/4 inch of water in the bottom and baked for an hour.

When the flesh is super soft take the pumpkin out and let it cool for a while, I think I waited about 30 minutes. Scrape out the flesh and put into a blender or food processor...

Puree the pumpkin until silky smooth and then put it into a fine colander or a regular one with a cheese cloth spread out on the bottom and let the water drain out of the pumpkin into a bowl for 30-60 minutes...

After about 30 minutes I had 1/2 a cup of water in the bowl. I stopped there but I think next time I will drain it for the full hour. Mine still seemed a little too liquidy.

Put all the sugars, salt, spices and lemon zest into a bowl...
And whisk...
Add the wet ingredients and whisk again...

You will end up with a beautiful and delicious fresh pumpkin pie. This is seriously the best pumpkin pie I have ever had!! I will never used canned pumpkin again!!

Love and Olive Oil's Old Fashioned Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

2 cups of fresh pumpkin, pureed

1 12oz can of evaporated milk

1/2 cup packed brown sugar (their recipe says dark but I used light and it was fine)

1/3 cup white sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 eggs plus yolk of third egg

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom (I did not add this and neither did the author of the blog, according to her post)

1/2 teaspoon lemon zest

1 pie crust (you are on your own for that, I used store bought...) =)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix the sugars, salt, and spices plus zest in a bowl. Beat the eggs and add to dry mixture. Add the milk and pumpkin and whisk them together until mixed well.

Add filling to crust and bake at 425 for 15 minutes. After 15 minutes turn the heat down to 350 degrees and bake an additional 40-45 minutes or until a fork inserted near the center comes out clean. Let cool on a wire rack for 2 hours. Serve at room temperature.