Pumpkin pie...

This is our second year gardening on our homestead. We are still starting out small, getting the property, and the kids, under control, but we grew about 10 pumpkins and 20 squash this year, along with countless tomatoes. The pumpkins very in size from small pie pumpkins to large jack-o-lantern sized, most being the latter of the two. Although we are saving two pumpkins for carving in October, we need to preserve the rest.

For the first pumpkin ready, I decided to make it into pie. After all, J was begging me for a pumpkin pie. So I figured I'd try it out. I baked a rather large pumpkin for 45 minutes on 350'F. Then scraped out the flesh and pureed it in my mini-food processor with J and S's help. I ended up with 11 cups of puree, just to give you an idea of the size of the pumpkin.

Then I searched for a recipe that allowed for all of our dietary restrictions... J- no refined sugars, S- no cow's milk... and found a recipe for a Vermont Pumpkin Pie. I, of course, substituted goat's milk for the cow's milk and made my own pie crust (recipe to come later). The results were superb. Even D's grandmother loved it! The best pumpkin pie she's ever had, I believe she said. I did find that the pie needed to be cooked longer than the recipe called for. I think I left it in for about 1 hour 15 minutes before it looked 'set' enough for my liking.