It's almost Thanksgiving!

My family celebrates this sort of Holiday with a lot of guests and a lot of food, plenty of leftovers of all sorts. My friends would tell you that Holiday meals at my Mom or Grandmothers house meant plenty of food, but even more so DESSERT! Whether we were at home or at one of my relatives homes there was always enough dessert to fill an entire banquet table. Many of my Grandmother's recipes were not written down, she would just measure the ingredients with her hand and eye. At some point my Mom started actually measuring out what her Mom was doing and was able to create an archive of her favorite recipes. At one time I made this recipe using fresh steamed Pumpkin, I didn't mash it enough so the pie was rather lumpy, my Mom just laughed about it, but it was delicious and there were no leftovers for the next day!

So with my Family in my thoughts this Holiday I share with you this recipe.

PUMPKIN PIE

Turn your oven to 400, when you put the pie into the oven lower the temperature to 375, it should take about 1 Hour to cook, in Taos at 7,200 feet this takes a bit longer.

(Grandma's trick was to always start the oven very hot)

2 1/2 Cups Pumpkin (mashed)

1/3 Cup Maple Syrup

1 1/2 Cup Sweetened Condensed Milk

2 Eggs

1/2 Teaspoon Vanilla

1/4 Cup Brown Sugar

1 Teaspoon each of Cinnamon & Ginger

1 Pinch of each Salt, Nutmeg, Allspice, Clove, Mace

Mix this together and pour into a pie pan that you have put a pie crust into.

I use a rather large pyrex glass pie pan. If you have too much batter don't waste it, just pour it into a couple of ramekins, and bake these too!

We prefer a pie crust made with half Butter and half Shortening such as:

1 1/2 Cups Flour

Pinch of Salt

1/6 Cup Shortening

1/6 Cup Butter

3-4 Tablespoons ice cold Water

If you've never made pie crust before this is rather straight forward and not very difficult, do this first wrap it up and put it in the fridge until you're ready to roll it out and put it into your pie tin. I roll it out onto parchment paper to make it easier to transfer to the pan.

A perfect pumpkin pie does not crack, but if it does don't worry just enjoy how delicious it is!