Fresh pumpkin pie

E: There's this whole movement in cooking, whether at home or in a restaurant, to use fresh, locally grown produce. When I stopped at the store last week, I saw these pie pumpkins and decided to try making a pumpkin pie from scratch.

One of thing I've heard is that pumpkin pie doesn't taste much different, whether it's frozen, store bought or homemade. Perhaps it means that fresh pumpkins don't taste much different from canned pumpkins. We'll see...

First, I cut open the pumpkin in half and seeded the pumpkins. Then, I placed both halves, open side down, in a roasting pan. The pumpkin roasted in the oven at 375 degrees for at least 60 minutes, until the insides were soft. After roasting, the meat is quite easy to scoop out. (Careful, it's hot!)

Puree in a food processor. (This is the most fun part!)

Now for the crust. If you have time and ambition, you'll want to make your own crust. Trust me, it'll be flakier and more buttery than any store bought one. Cut the butter into 1/2-inch cubes (or rectangles). The butter needs to be as cold as possible, so freezing it after cutting helps. In a food processor, add flour, salt, shortening and butter. Pulse a few times, add a little water, pulse some more. Eventually, the dough clumps together. Be careful not to over process the dough. Once it reaches the right consistency, put the dough in plastic wrap, form a ball, flatten into a disc. Refrigerate for half an hour.


After refrigerating, roll the dough out thinly and push into pie pan. Bake the crust and let it cool.

For the pie filling, I mixed the pumpkin puree, brown sugar, eggs, salt, vanilla extract, corn starch, cinnamon, ground gloves, ground nutmeg and ground ginger. Bake.

The result:

Conclusion? Great flavor and texture. It does taste better than frozen pie, but it's also a lot of work. I'm undecided whether it's really worth all the effort.