And on the seventh day, she made pie

Yep, that about sums up the accomplishments of today...I made pie. Okay, I did a little more than that: Evan and I went to church (he refused to sing during church, but launched into the Eagles fight song the second we were out the door), watched a little football and visited with some friends, and also made up a batch of spaghetti sauce. Not my best, but it got rid of the 17 pounds of tomatoes that were taking over the fridge. But let's get back to pie.

In preparation for Thanksgiving, I figured I would do the hard work of the pumpkin pies today and make the filling. It was an entertaining day and Ethan realized after about 3 minutes that he should remove himself and the children from the same floor as the knife-wielding crazy lady (that would be me). Oh, I guess I should mention the pies get made from real pumpkin, not the canned variety. Here's how it went.

I collected the pumpkins and started the process of hacking them into small pieces to be boiled. I think, if I do this again, I need to invest in a chainsaw, or at the very least a large meat cleaver. At one point, I did contemplate putting each pumpkin into a bag and throwing it out the window onto the pavement instead of hacking into it with a giant knife. For the sake of those outside my immediate family that have to eat the pies, I did not do this.

After hacking, boil the living daylights out of the pumpkin (see, even if I did throw them out the window there wouldn't have been any germs left after the boiling). Then, puree using the neighbor's food processor that looked like it was older than me. It had no power button, so you had to load some pumpkin, plug it in, and pray not to electrocute yourself. It worked though, so I'm not complaining. And Ethan's smoothies will not have a pumpkin flavor for the next month like they did the last time I did this and used his blender.

Then comes the real messy part, which only pictures can describe (and I was cleaning as I went along):

I think I count 3 measuring cups, 2 mixing bowls, a colander, a food processor, a hand mixer, and 1 bottle of wine (which I did not drink while making, but it adds to the picture)


A pot of pumpkin goo, seeds for roasting (excellent with ground garlic and salt), another mixing bowl, and many towels. Notice the little pumpkin that was spared hiding behind the pot...I really did need a chainsaw to try and hack through that thing!!


Everything but the pumpkin (my mother sent me the recipe because apparently the 'new' Betty Crocker cookbook recipe just isn't the same as the old one and why mess with something that tastes so good?)

And now the pre-mixed filling is safely packed into Ziploc bags to be baked on Wednesday. I am baking one to take into work tomorrow to try out on my guinea pigs. Last time I used them as guinea pigs, they sent me home to bake more of these. Hopefully the pie goes over just as well! Anyway, pumpkin pie...easy enough right? Whew...

And a random picture I found when uploading the pie making adventure. Eric and I were going 'bye-bye' one day and when I turned around from getting my coat on, I found a miniature bag lady (boy).