The Thanksgiving Pie

A Thanksgiving Pumpkin Pie, you say! Sure, I’ll make one; I knew we had a can of pumpkin in the pantry. And, having waited patiently for months, there it was. Likewise I knew there was a pie crust in the frig. My, oh, my, there it was, but hopelessly out of date and unusable. This was no problem, for an experience cook, I’ll just make one. I hadn’t made a pie crust in years, but I gave it the old college try. With fluted edge around the pie plate, it looked good.

The next chore was the pumpkin mixture. No worries until I discovered we had no ground cloves. Not to worry, I had regular cloves so I put some in a plastic bag and beat them into submission.

Next, add 12 ounces of condensed milk. Since I don’t keep any on the pantry shelf, I went to the internet to see what could be used as a substitute. One tip was to substitute buttermilk. Another said to condense your own milk by evaporation. So into a wide saucepan I poured 2½ cups of 2% milk and let this slowly (I do mean slowly) simmer until all but one cup of milk had evaporated. This I placed in the refrigerator and once cool enough to work with I added another 4 ounces of buttermilk to meet MY requirement.

About this time Dwain comes in, and after hearing my tale of woe suggests that it would be easier all around if he went to the store and just bought a pumpkin pie. Since I had all the ingredients ready to pour into the pie crust, that suggestion fell on deaf ears. Dwain’s plan B was for me to make a few tarts, so he could taste it before anybody else was exposed to the pie. He was hoping there would be too much filling for the pie crust and I could make a few tarts. No such luck, all the mixture fit right into the shell.

After a delicious dinner of turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, etc., at Jacqui and Beau's house, Dwain went right to the pumpkin pie. He had two nice big pieces and declared the pie, without the crust, was some of the best he had ever eaten. I laughed and said, “you just like custard.” He nor anyone else got sick so I claim success. The moral to this story is: Check to make sure you have all needed ingredients prior to starting the project.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends.

Maggie