Fall feastings

Mmmmmmmmm . . . . . . . . . . . . . .I love autumn eating.  Which is a good thing.  It helps ease the sorrow of losing the overabundance of summer produce from my inlaws’  garden.  So it is goodbye tomatoes, cucumbers and fresh green beans.  HELLO! spinach, broccoli, greens, apples and pumpkin!

In keeping with the season, we have been baking lots of pumpkin goodies and frying up apples.  I baked a pumpkin pie to take to my inlaws last weekend.  I can’t swear it was good, because I didn’t get any!  But Grandmother Louise said she really liked it.  That must be true, since she ate a whole piece on top of her supper and she usually eats like a very little bird.

I call my recipe Squash Pie, because I have used it with pumpkin, butternut squash and sweet potatoes.  Hmmm, I guess that logic doesn’t really work with sweet potatoes, since they aren’t squash-y.    No matter,  the recipe has been delicious every time I’ve made it. 

I love to make a big batch of this pie, sometimes I quin . . . . .quintuple . . . . . er, uh multiply it by 5.  It is easy with a mixer.  Then I measure 2 cups of uncooked pie filling into quart-size ziploc baggies and freeze flat.  Freezing flat is important when you don’t have a freezer other than the little freezer department in your refrigerator.  You can store a LOT of food in a small space this way.  Flat is also cool for thawing.  You can throw a flat frozen baggie on the countertop, and it will be thawed in about an hour.  I also do this for pie crust, which I hate taking the time to mix up individually for some reason.  I always make more than I need.  Then wrap and freeze the excess —  The lazy woman’s way to homemade pie.  Except this method doesn’t make me look lazy.  It makes me look like an awesome wife and mother when it is 5 o’clock and someone mentions a craving for pie.

Squash Pie

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a medium-large bowl, mix with electric mixer

½ tsp. ginger

Pour into unbaked pie shell. Cover the crust with foil to prevent burning. Bake for 28 minutes.**

*This recipe works well with butternut squash, sweet potatoes, or pumpkin.

**28 minutes is right for a convection oven. May take longer in regular oven.

These proportions work well for my Pampered Chef round stone, which is slightly larger than usual 9” pie pan.