Pumpkin Pie

I bought a few sugar pumpkins (or sometimes called pie pumpkins) a few weeks ago but was too lazy to make a pie. Since it was snowing this past weekend, I spent Sunday making a pumpkin pie and processing our two jackolanterns.

I'm not a huge fan of pumpkin pie but I will make it for other people because everyone seems to love the stuff. It is not the canned pumpkin that bothers me. Canned pumpkin is actually not bad. It is better than using a jackolatern pumpkin. Libby grows a specific type of pumpkin called Dickinson for their canned pumpkin. Dickinson pumpkins actually look more like butternut squash than a pumpkin pumpkin. (Does that make sense?) My grandmother grew pumpkins every year. She had seeds that she brought with her when she fled China. The pumpkins look very similar to cheese pumpkins. I used to make pumpkin pies using pumpkins from her garden but since I am so far away now, I find that sugar pumpkins or even butternut squash will make a pretty darn good pie.

The sugar pumpkins I bought were the perfect size and yielded enough flesh to make one 9-inch pie (or the equivalent of one 15 ounce can of Libby pumpkin which is 1 3/4 cups). The most time consuming part is cooking the pumpkin. After the flesh is cooked and collected from the shell, I simply blend everything up in the food processor and poor into a pie crust.


1 sugar pumpkin (about 1 1/2 to 1 3/4 cups of cooked pumpkin)
1 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
2 extra large eggs
2 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (Use a good pumpkin pie spice mix. I get mine from our local spice shop.)
recipe for one pie crust or use a refrigerated or frozen crust

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Cut pumpkin in half and scoop out the guts. Place pumpkin, cut side down on a foil lined baking sheet. Bake for about 45 minutes or until flesh is soft.

2. When pumpkin is soft, scoop out the flesh into the bowl of a food processor. Add sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and pumpkin pie spice. Process until pumpkin is smooth and pour into prepared pie crust.

3. Bake in oven for about an hour or until set in the middle.

The bf gives this his stamp of approval.

I also cooked our two jackolanterns. They were getting a little cold in the snow. Jackolaterns are not ideal for pies but works just fine for breads and soups. The flesh is very fibrous and watery. You definitely need a good food processor to help break up the long strands.

Look at the difference between the sugar pumpkin flesh (top) and the jackolantern flesh (bottom):

Anyone need jackolatern puree? I have about 9 quarts in the freezer.