First, plant your wheat, raise it, harvest it, thresh it, winnow it, and then grind it into flour. During that same summer, raise a hog to maturity, butcher it and make lard with its fat. Develop a relationship with a traveling peddler and obtain some salt and exotic spices. Tap your maple trees and boil the sap down to sugar.
Now, plant some pumpkins. When they are ripe, harvest them, cut them up and cook them, then scrape them off the skins and either can the flesh or put it in your freezer.
Go out, milk the cow. Collect some eggs from the hen house.
Now, wash your hands.
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PIE CRUST
2 C flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 C lard
1 teaspoon lemon juice (or vinegar)
1 to 4 tablespoons cold water
Blend flour and salt together. Using your finger tips, rub half of the lard into the flour and salt mixture until it looks like bread crumbs. Cut in the remainder until the largest pieces are the size of peas.
Mix the lemon juice into the water and sprinkle this over the flour/lard mixture blending it in lightly with a fork until the dough just holds together.
Either roll it out right away, or make a ball of it, wrap it in waxed paper, and stick it in the fridge to cool. This makes enough pastry for a two crust pie. For pumpkin pie, either make two pies or save the extra half of the recipe in the freezer for the next time you want to make pie.
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PUMPKIN PIE FILLING
1 1/2 – 2 C cooked pumpkin. Mash it up good to get rid of the strings. I used my blender to puree the pumpkin. You can use canned pumpkin but your pie will be considerably denser. I think they remove some of the water from the pumpkin flesh during the commercial canning process.
3/4 C brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground dried ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
a pinch of ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs (plus 1 yolk [optional] for a particularly rich custard)
1 tablespoon melted butter
Preheat your oven to 450°F
Roll out half the pie crust you made above. Put it into a nice pie pan, I like crockery or glass ones the best. They transfer heat to the pie better during baking. Flute the edges of the crust to make them stand up tall.
Put the pumpkin in a mixing bowl. Stir in the sugar, the spices and the salt.
Lightly beat the eggs and add the milk. Combine the pumpkin and milk mixtures. Stir in the melted butter.
Pour custard into the pastry shell.
You would do well to do this after the pastry shell is actually in the oven. The custard is very thin and I have a hard time carrying the filled shell to the oven without spilling it. If you have too much custard for the crust, pour the excess into a buttered ramekin and bake it along with the pie. Pumpkin custard makes a superior breakfast.
It is a good idea to put cookie sheet in the oven on the rack below the center rack where your pie will bake. I have found it is much easier to clean spilled stuff off a cookie sheet than from off the bottom of my oven.
Bake pie at 450°F for 10 minutes. Turn the heat down to 350°F and continue baking for 35 minutes, or until a knife slid into the custard about an inch from the crust comes out clean. If you have a small ramekin of custard, bear in mind that it will probably be done before the pie is.
Remove from oven, cool on rack.
You can garnish thh pie with whipped cream if you like.
Eat, enjoy.
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If your wheat crop was a failure, your hens aren’t laying, your cow is dry, or your hog didn’t grow, you can purchase the ingredients at your local super market. Also, you can use shortening in place of the lard in the pie crust and it will turn out fine.
