Pumpkin Pie

American Dessert

PUMPKIN PIE

INGREDIENTS

2 eggs
1/4 teaspoon cardamom, ground
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves, ground
3/4 teaspoon ginger, ground
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup sugar
1 15 ounce can pumpkin mashed or puree
1 12 ounce can evaporated milk
2 8″-to-9″graham-cracker pie shell or 1 9″ deep dish graham-cracker pie shell
whipped cream for topping

PREPARATION

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Add eggs, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, salt, and sugar to large bowl. Beat eggs with whisk. Add pumpkin. Mix with whisk. Add evaporated milk. Mix again with whisk. Pour mixture into pie shell. Put filled pie shell in oven and bake at 425 degrees for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees. Bake an additional 40-to-50 minutes or until toothpick inserted into the pie’s center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve with whipped cream. Yum.

TIDBITS

1) Pumpkins are grown on every continent except Antarctica.

2) Morton, Illinois is the Pumpkin Capital. Go visit its Pumpkin Festival in mid September.

3) Pumpkin seeds have been used to remove freckles.

4) Linus from the comic strip Peanuts believed in the Great Pumpkin. See the lyrics for “I’m dreaming of the Great Pumpkin” and other pumpkin songs.

6) In 2009, motorcyclists in Nigeria wore dried pumpkin shells on their heads to circumvent laws making them wear helmets.

7) Irish lore says Stingy Jack was too miserly to get into Heaven. But Jack had tricked the devil so he wasn’t welcome there either. Jack roamed the darkness between Heaven and Hell with a lit, carved pumpkin. This is probably the basis for pumpkin carving on Halloween. That and freckle fear.

– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef

My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.