pumpkin-ish pie.

As you all know by now, New Zealand is severely lacking in the pumpkin department.   You can buy fresh pumpkin soup in restaurants and canned versions in the supermarket, but they don't do pumpkin pie.  To purchase canned pumpkin you either have to order it from an American food store or get really lucky.  I got really lucky at one point and happened to find two cans of Libby's at the supermarket one neighbourhood over, you can see what I did with it here.

You can imagine my surprise when I visited Saint Francis house, where my friends Mari and Ruth reside, and I was served up a pumpkin pie for dessert!  The following week Ruth surprised me by hand-delivering a pumpkin straight from a family member's farm along with the recipe they used.

Now before we go any further I should warn you, New Zealand pumpkin pie is absolutely nothing like American pumpkin pie and never will be.  There are two reasons for this.

Reason No. 1: They don't sell shortening here so the pie crust is completely different.  Instead of a thin, hard crust, it is a fluffy crust that tastes more like shortbread.  This is likely because it is shortbread.

Reason No. 2: The label may say pumpkin, but I can assure you, whatever it is, it is not a pumpkin.  Instead you are purchasing squash.  The most common "pumpkin" sold here is a variety referred to as butternut pumpkin.  Sound vaguely familiar?  Change that pumpkin to squash and that is what you are really getting.  Now you might be saying, "But Jess, pumpkins are a type of squash!".  This is entirely true, but much like squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares, this doesn't make the squash your peddling a pumpkin!  

I'm not exactly sure what kind of squash I ended up with, but it smelled more like a melon when I broke it open.  After it was heated up a bit it smelled more like a really hot squash.

If you are reading this in the States and wondering how to make a proper pumpkin pie from scratch you have far more options than squash, but whatever you do DO NOT try to use a carving pumpkin.  The pumpkin you need is called a pie pumpkin.  Pie pumpkins are very small in size, but they have more meat than carving pumpkins which are usually full of inedible stringy-bits.

Pumpkin-ish Pie

Ingredients:

Pie Crust 

You can make this from scratch or cheat and buy Edmond's pre-made short crust like I did.

Small pumpkin/squash

You will need 2 cups pureed, instructions on how to do this are below

1 can evaporated milk

375 ml/12 fl. oz

2 eggs

3/4 c. packed brown sugar

3/4 tsp pumpkin pie spice

If you are in NZ you will have to make this yourself

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp vanilla

Prepare the Crust

1. Grease your pie tin lightly
2. Place the crust in the tin
3. Place parchment paper on top of the crust and weigh it down with uncooked beans or rice
4. Cook for approximately 10 minutes at 100°C, then remove the parchment paper and weight and continue cooking the crust for 5 more minutes.

This process is known as "blind baking". It is necessary to get the crust cooked properly before adding the filling to it or else you will likely end up with a soggy, half-baked crust.

Prepare the Pumpkin-ish

If you have a whole New Zealand pumpkin, you are going to have lots of fun with this next step!  These bad boys are tough. In a bar fight between a Kiwi pumpkin and a steak knife, the Kiwi pumpkin would totally win.  

1. Put the pumpkin a plastic grocery bag that you don't have any particular emotional attachment towards and tie it up tight.
2. Channel all the rage of Hulk and throw your pumpkin filled bag as hard as you can on a hard surface, preferably concrete.

3. If your pumpkin broke in two, congratulations, you can go back inside before your neighbours notice any suspicious activity.  If not, repeat step two.
4. Once the pumpkin has broken apart, use a metal spoon to spoon out the seeds and stringy bits.  You should be left with the pumpkin meat still attached to the skin.

5. Place the pumpkin in a microwavable bowl, filled with water in the bottom, and stick in the microwave on high for ten to fifteen minutes.  The pumpkin is ready when the flesh can easily be scooped out of the skin.

6. Throw the skin, seeds, and stringy-bits on the compost heap and puree the remaining flesh.  You can use a fancy mixer for this or a simple fork.

Ingredients… Assemble!

1. In a large bowl beat together 2 cups pureed pumpkin, evaporated milk, eggs, brown sugar, pumpkin spice, vanilla, and salt.
2. Do not panic if your mixture is runny, it will firm up in the oven.
3. Pour the mixture into the pie crust, you will likely have pumpkin mixture leftover, don't fret.
4. Cover the edges of the pie crust with tinfoil to prevent it from burning and place your pie back in the oven for 40 minutes.  

If you have any leftover pumpkin mixture, you can use it to create amazing pumpkin muffins following the recipe found here.  If you have leftover pumpkin puree (pure pumpkin with no extra ingredients added) you can freeze it for later.