Pumpkin Cream Pie

 Yesterday, I was inspired by Martha Stewart's slide show on Thanksgiving Pies.  Thought it might be fun to re-work the recipes using more fresh ingredients- then post one per day.

 I started out with the first recipe: Martha Stewart's Pumpkin Cream Pie.  Instead of canned pumpkin, I cooked this darling little thing- a small pie pumpkin.
 

Didn't want to use stale ground spices, so decided to try baking the pumpkin with whole spices and see what happened.  You can see a cinnamon stick (think in future I would break it up and insert it into the pumpkin for more flavor), 8 cloves, and some fresh grated ginger.  I grated the nutmeg into the milk per directions.  These were cooked in a 400 degree oven for 45 minutes and were perfect.  Plunged the halves down into my handy dandy food mill and almost nothing was left except for bare skin, the cinnamon stick and some cloves.  This worked very well as Rob decreed that they smelled like pumpkin when they came out of the oven.  Here is what I got from this little pie pumpkin:

Pumpkin in a one-cup measuring cup

 Followed the rest of the recipe pretty much as in the link, except had to substitute arrowroot for corn starch (which I think was better).  Also cooked the custard until it was thickened and this took longer than 2 minutes.  Wanted to stop when it was just barely thickened  but this custard went from runny to thick in about 10 seconds- adding the pumpkin and the butter helped cool it down and smooth it out a lot.  Right now, the pie is resting in the refrigerator.

Here is a picture of the pumpkin pie I made last week- as soon as I was able to snap a picture. Went fairly well.  Turning pumpkin into puree from last week.

Knife inserted goes through nicely

Passing through the food mill

Best part of food milling the pumpkin is that you don't need to peel it or anything- and almost all the goodness goes through.

Tasted the pie we made today at each step,  Felt the need to add more cinnamon. Other than that, this looks like it's going to be a delicious pie day!

Might make some meringue cookies soon- have 4 egg whites!

5PM- pie never set- crust was amazing might try it with real pumpkin pie but the filling is disappointing...