My Mother’s Kitchen: Pumpkin Pie Recipe

Photo taken in early 1960's

I made pumpkin pies last Sunday. Usually I bake pies only for special occasions such as Christmas and Thanksgiving celebrations; I don’t normally make them in the summer. In fact, I hadn’t planned to turn my oven on at all that hot and humid Sunday, let alone turn it on to bake pies in the sweltering heat. But that was the day my freezer decided to stop freezing, my frozen unbaked pie shells decided to thaw, and I decided to make two pumpkin pies.

Mom baked a lot of pies over the years–apple, cherry, lemon-meringue, butterscotch, cocoanut, mincement, rhubarb, and of course my favourite, pumpkin.  Her pies were made from scratch; there were no packaged, frozen, unbaked pie shells in her freezer, and the ingredients she used to make these wonderful desserts were fresh as well. Fresh rhubarb in the spring, fresh berries in the summer, fresh apples in the fall. Mom made mincemeat by forcing chunks of beef or venison through an old-fashioned meat grinder and adding aromatic spices and sweet raisins to the mixture. I didn’t care for mincemeat when I was growing up, but I did love her pumpkin pies.

Every Christmas Eve we left a piece of pumpkin pie out for “Santa” to eat, and sure enough, on Christmas morning it was gone….only a couple of pastry crumbs left.  Christmas breakfast was another Pumpkin Pie-Fest; it was the only day of the year that we were allowed to have dessert for breakfast! Our father was the instigator of this tradition, because as much as I loved mom’s pumpkin pie, our father loved it more! Try this pumpkin pie recipe the next time you want to impress your family and friends–they will love you for it!

Pumpkin Pie

2 cups cooked pumpkin
¼ cup honey
1 tsp. salt
¾ tsp. ginger
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. nutmeg
¼ tsp. cloves
1/3 cup white sugar
1 cup milk
2 eggs 

Directions
Combine pumpkin, honey, salt, spices and sugar. Beat egg and milk together and add to pumpkin. Beat well. Bake in unbaked pie shell at 400° F for 15 minutes, reduce heat to 375°F and cook until knife inserted in centre comes out clean.
______________________________________________________________________________________

Pastry

2 cups pastry flour
2/3 cup shortening
¼ cup milk
¼ tsp. salt

Directions
Blend ingredients together with pastry blender. Roll out on floured board. Transfer to pie plates and trim edges.

Thanks for reading my blog.  I’m interested in your thoughts and feedback.  Please use the comment feature above to let me know what you think. Thanks again.