Easy as pie: Making a pumpkin pie from scratch isn't that hard after all

There's a reason you haven't been reading about my mishaps in the kitchen lately. No, I haven't been attending culinary school over in Europe. And I haven't been providing Tom Harte with recipes for a new cookbook.

For the last six months I've been working for the American Red Cross trying to help keep the local hospitals stocked with blood products for patients. My new co-workers don't know about my cooking abilities, so I decided it was time to let them sample something from my kitchen.

Since we celebrate Thanksgiving on Thursday, I decided to bake them a pumpkin pie -- from scratch. Yes, using a real pumpkin and not that stuff from a can.

The recipe for my pie came from a Web site that's dedicated to seeking out the best pumpkin patches across the country, so I figured it was a legitimate recipe. I also enjoyed the side notes throughout the recipe which encouraged you to fix a daiquiri while baking because the process takes so long.

One day last week, I stopped by Diebold's Orchard in Benton, Mo., on my way home from work to pick up my main ingredient. I was a little startled to see about 10 different types of pumpkins. Which kind should I buy?

Thankfully, the sales lady let me know a "cow pumpkin" works best for pies. I picked one out of the bunch and took my pumpkin home.

At this point, I had already made a slight mistake. The recipe suggested using a pumpkin that was about 8 inches in diameter and as tall as a can of cooked pumpkin. My pumpkin was about a foot in diameter and as tall as two cans of cooked pumpkin. I'll be eating pumpkin pie for weeks after Thanksgiving.

Jennifer poured the pureed pumpkin filling into the pie crust. (Submitted photo)

The first step involved washing the pumpkin and cutting it in half. Because my pumpkin was so big, it took my mom, me and three different types of knives to cut a chunk off. Once this was done, I scraped out the messy insides.

I cut up one small section of my gigantic pumpkin, chopped it up into several pieces and placed it into a microwave-safe bowl with about two inches of water in it. This bowl went in the microwave for about 20 minutes.

As the pumpkin cooked, my mother taught me how to make pie crust. This is the part where the daiquiri would have come in handy. Growing up, I never took an interest in the art of baking. Now that I'm older, my mother can't wait to teach me all of her skills in the kitchen -- and it can be a little annoying.

Here's the recipe for the crust:

1 1/2 cups of flour

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup shortening

4 tablespoons of cold water

With my mother standing next to me -- making sure I didn't mess up -- I mixed together the flour and salt. Then I chopped the shortening with the flour and salt until it was in tiny pieces. I poured the cold water over the dough and formed it into a ball.

"This is the tricky part," my mom said as she handed over the rolling pin. "Make sure you don't mess up or else it won't taste right."

I took the pin and with nervous hands, I rolled the dough flat. After my mother gave my crust approval, I rolled the flattened dough around the pin and rolled it out into a pie pan. Several holes were left in the dough after I had rolled it into the pie pan, so I picked up some of the extra dough and patched up the crust.

"What are you doing?" mom asked me. "You can't do that or the crust will be too thick."

Where was my daiquiri?

At this point, the pumpkin had finished cooking in the microwave. I scraped out the softened pumpkin, placed 3 cups of it into the blender and mixed it for a couple of minutes. Once the pumpkin was a smooth consistency, I added the following ingredients:

1 cup of sugar

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon of ground cloves

1 teaspoon of allspice

1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger

4 large eggs

1 1/2 cans (12 ounces each) of evaporated milk

Once all the ingredients were blended together, I poured the mixture into my pie crust. For some reason, my pie filling had doubled in size and I had enough to bake another pie.

The first pie went in the oven at 425 degrees for 15 minutes, and then 325 degrees for another 45 minutes. When the pie finished baking, I was actually pleased with its appearance -- usually the result doesn't look so pretty.

After the first pie cooled, my parents and a couple of friends tried a bite of my three-hour-long masterpiece.

"This is actually really good," my mom said. "Good job on the crust."

Did I actually hear her correctly?

Once both pies had finished baking, I noticed there was about two-thirds of a pumpkin left. My mom caught me glancing at the remaining pumpkin.

"Oh good," she said. "You can bake the pumpkin pies for Thanksgiving dinner."

I'll need that daiquiri now.

Jennifer Freeze is a former features editor for the Southeast Missourian who enjoys testing her inexperienced hand at kitchen tasks.