Prepare for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is in a four days, and our plans are pretty much set. We are invited to our dear friends' house for a traditional turkey dinner. We'll bring pies and homemade rolls.

Agenda:

1. Cook the pumpkins:
The secret to good pumpkin pie is to use fresh pumpkin. We harvested six small pie pumpkins from our garden this year, and had one big pumpkin donated (thanks, Jeff!). I cooked the pumpkins a couple of days ago. 

After chopping and cleaning the pumpkins, I baked them at 350ºF until they were soft. Then I scooped them out of the skins and put the pumpkin in containers in the refrigerator for later. 

I got about 18 cups, way more than enough for the three large pies I plan to make; I will probably have enough for a couple of pies at Christmas, too!

2. Make a thank you card and hand them out:
I've been having fun painting colorful abstract papers, and decided to use one to make a card. It's pretty easy to scan the paper, then upload it to Pixlr, a free on-line program, to add words and borders. Here's what I made on Friday:

I printed a few to hand out, and I plan to send some by email as well.

3. Make the pies:
On Wednesday I will make pies-- several, because we need one for breakfast on Friday! My pumpkin pie recipe-

Ingredients:

• 4 c. pumpkin
• 1/2 c. milk
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 c. sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 tsp. each ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg

Makes one large pie-

1- Make the pastry and line the pie plate. Preheat the oven to 450ºF.

2- Put half of the pumpkin and half of the milk in the blender with one egg and blend until pureed.

3- Pour into a mixer bowl, and repeat with the second batch.

This is enough for two pies.

4- Add sugar, salt, and spices to the mixer bowl and mix on low, then pour into pie shell.

5- Bake at 450ºF for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to 375ºF and bake for 45 minutes.