Saturday, October 5, 2013

Pumpkin Love!!!!

We have this adorable little pumpkin patch next to the house. A few months ago the leaves were so large, we named the patch Audrey II (We're a theatre family, y'know.)
In the midst of my feeling down today, I decided to cheer up and be creative. SO I chose two of the pumpkins to make a pie and a Jack-O-lantern. (Aidenn wanted to pose as well.)
I took a large pot and filled it half way with water. I set it on the stove and started heating the water so it would boil. While it was heating up, I washed off both of the pumpkins.
I then took the smaller of the two and cut it in half- a Herculean task in and of itself. I scooped out the inside goop and seeds. I then began to cut it into pieces and cut the "meat" from the outside shell (or skin or whatever you call it). After that, I cut the "meat" in to small pieces and added it to the boiling water. I was surprised at how almost sweet the boiling pumpkin pieces smelled. It also made me hungry, lol. Once all of the pumpkin pieces were in the boiling water, I occasionally checked their texture. Once they were easily pierced with a fork, I knew they were ready for the next step.
I carefully poured the contents of the pot into a colander in the sink, draining out the water. I then allowed cold water to run over the softened pumpkin pieces to help cool them a bit.
This food processor pictured is what we call the Oskar, so dubbed because of the name brand. Now, the Oskar was a wedding gift for mom and dad. That thing is 25 years old and still works like a charm. Is it weird to have an emotional attachment for an appliance? I don't care. I freaking love the Oskar. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANYWAYS, I took the warm pumpkin pieces (they were hot-ish still) and started to puree them in the Oskar. I obviously had to do it little by little as there was a lot of pumpkin to grind up.
All in all, I ended up with a little over five and a half cups of pumpkin puree. With two cups of the puree, I whisked in the following ingredients to make the pie filling: 1 can of Sweetened Condensed Milk 2 eggs 1 teaspoon Cinnamon 1 teaspoon ground Ginger 1 teaspoon Nutmeg 1/4 teaspoon Salt ***You can use one 16 oz can of Pumpkin Puree if decide to do store bought.*** I took the remaining three and a half cups of puree and place it in the fridge for later use (I'll definitely make another pie within the next week!) For the crust, I used the following recipe: 1 1/4 cup Flour 1/4 teaspoon Salt 1/2 cup Butter, chilled and Diced (this also translates into 1 stick of butter) 1/4 cup Ice Water I set the oven to preheat for 425 degrees. I combined the flour and salt in a bowl and then cut in the butter until the mixture resembled coarse crumbs. I slowly added the ice water to the mixture and stirred it up until it began to ball up. I went ahead and rolled out this mixture to make the pie crust. I had to add a little bit of flour as the dough was sticking to the rolling pin. I placed the dough in the greased pie pan and poured in the filling, and put the pie in the oven for 15 minutes. I ended up with extra dough and filling so I simply grabbed a small custard/souffle dish and baked it off along with the pie. After the 15 minute span, I lowered the temperature to 350 and baked for 35 more minutes.

While waiting for the oven to finish baking, I took the larger pumpkin, gutted it out, and carved a silly happy face. :) It made me smile.

This was taken right after I took them out of the oven. Isn't that a beautiful sight???? I love the fall!