Pumpkin Extravaganza

In lieu of the holiday tomorrow, I've decided to get all seasonal and bake not one, but two pumpkin pies. The first one I made is your traditional run-of-the-mill pumpkin pie. I bought the crust, assembled the ingredients (don't tell the fam but it's actually low-fat ), baked it and voila -- pie!

Not to mention that Bert got some serious use from all the afternoon baking. Here's a shot of Bert in all of his grandeur (if you look closely you can see me taking the pic...so dorky):



The trickiest thing about traditional pumpkin pie is that you have to be a bit creative in baking it. See, the pumpkin filling has a loooong bake time -- at least an hour. Well, no pie crust can handle that, so in order to have a cooked filling and an unblackened crust, you have to delicately cut and place little strips of aluminum foil all around the crust. As I learned, I kinda suck at that. From the looks of this photo, I also suck at cleaning my oven frequently. (Add that to the list of things to do this weekend.)



While waiting for the above to bake, I got started on my frozen pumpkin mousse pie. I bought a graham cracker crust (I had every intention of making my own ginger snap crust, but all the ginger snaps had already been snatched up at my g-store), some pumpkin puree and light vanilla ice cream. I mixed it all together with some spice, poured it in the crust and stuck it in the freezer. If the batter leftover on the spoon I used to mix it all together is any indication of the pie's tastiness, it should be a new holiday favorite. Here's a pic of that (not a great shot of the pie by any means, but I like how the cheap pie plate is all wrinkly):



I think everyone will like the pies...or at least be nice enough to say they like them. I'll keep you posted.

Happy Thanksgiving, all!