Pumpkin Pie Experiment

I grew up in the generation that loved jello, canned goods, and frozen foods, and while my mom was a great cookie baker, she didn't spend a lot of time on pie baking. So when one of my college professors asked if I had made a pumpkin pie from scratch, I sort of said, "Huh?" All that is changing now.

Since we've had a farm share and gotten fresh local vegetables the last two years, I've become somewhat adept at cooking squash. I love making turkey sausage and squash skillets.

Today I had a nice sized pumpkin, and since I had the time, I decided to cook it up to make a fresh-from-the-farm pumpkin pie. I'm trying two different recipes. A traditional, full fat, full sugar recipe, and one South Beach no-crust option. Pumpkin pie without the sugar, crust, and heavy evaporated milk is actually quite healthy--just pumpkin, spices, and eggs.

Roasting pumpkin is quite easy, and then you can roast those delicious pumpkin seeds. I simply cut the pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds (with an ice cream scoop), and then place the halves meat-size down on a cookie sheet with a little water in the bottom. Roast for about an hour at 375 or 400 degrees. When I can jab the side with a fork and the fork goes in easily, it's ready. I let the halves cool, meat-side up, and then with my hands, scrape the pumpkin away from the skin into a bowl. Then I used my mixer to puree it. Here's how it looked:

I followed this recipe for South Beach pumpkin pie, and opted to not use the whole wheat tortilla. I think I'd rather just savor the delicious pumpkiny flavor instead of having the fake crust in my mouth. Here it is baking in a greased casserole dish (since I'll save my pie pan for the "normal" pumpkin pie):

Delicious, healthy, and easy! And here's a link to an interesting recipe / information page--all about pumpkins and pumpkin pie.