I must admit that I am a serial pie crust philanderer. I'm never quite satisfied with the crust I've made in the past, and always feel the need to experiment with a new recipe, just in time for the holidays. This year, I found an overly complicated recipe that went along with another pie recipe in Saveur Magazine. Boy, was it horrible. It turned out to be the toughest pie crust I've ever had. Poor Walter, who was serving the pies at our otherwise flawless family Thanksgiving, had to saw, saw, saw just to cut off slices. Just awful.

Happily, however, the pumpkin pie filling I made was so delicious, so sublime, that it almost made up for the hideousness of the crust. I combined a few ideas and recipes I found on the web and those that were sent to me by friends, notably one recipe that featured fresh ginger. Yum.

Another fun thing to mention is that the pumpkin I used for the pie was a Long Island Cheese Pumpkin, an heirloom variety that's excellent for baking, which we got from our CSA over a year ago. It's been sitting on our kitchen table ever since. I was somewhat apprehensive to use it, but once I cut it open it was clearly fresh and ready to eat. I guess that's why squashes are considered storage vegetables!

The below recipe will make enough filling for two pies. Use a store-bought crust.

Ecstatic Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients

1 medium sized baking pumpkin, or 2 small [or 2 cans-- I think-- pumpkin puree]. Should be about 4 cups.
2/3 cup light brown sugar
2/3 cup dark brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
4 T white flour
1 t salt
4 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground cloves
3/4 t ground ginger
3 T ginger, pureed or minced very fine in a garlic press (for reference, I used about 2" worth of ginger root to get that much)
2 T molasses
1 1/2 t vanilla extract
6 eggs
1 1/3 cup heavy cream

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350.
2. Cut the pumpkin in half or thirds and scoop out the seeds.
3. Lightly oil a baking sheet and put the pumpkin parts on it, with the skin side up.
4. Bake for abut 40 minutes, or until the flesh is very soft.
5. Remove from oven and let cool slightly.
6. Scoop out the flesh into your food processor (if you don't have one you could use a blender. You want the pumpkin to be well-pureed and smooth. I made the whole recipe in the food processor but you could easily just do the pumpkin in batches in the blender and then do the rest in a large bowl.)
7. Pulse in food processor until smooth.
8. Add the sugars, flour, and salt, and pulse until well blended.
9. Add the spices, including the ginger, and the vanilla, and pulse until well blended.
10. Add the eggs 2 at a time and pulse until well blended.
11. Transfer to a large bowl and add the cream, and stir well.

-- here's where I popped it in the refrigerator overnight and made the pie in the morning after letting the mixture come up to room temp. Or you could just proceed directly to the next step.--

12. Turn the oven up to 450 and put a baking sheet in to preheat.
13. Once up to temp, fill the pie crust ((sigh)) and place onto the sheet in the oven.
14. Bake for 10 minutes, then lower the oven temp to 350 and bake for 45ish minutes, until the center is set and it's a bit puffy.
15. Cool on a cooling rack and serve with fresh whipped cream.

Here's a photo of my father-in-law, Walter, just before his heroic pie-cutting efforts.