Or Mincemeat with REAL meat?

Uh, read it wrong.

[This message has been edited by heybjorn (edited 08-06-2012).]

Too much trouble, it's much easier to just used the canned pumpkin.

have made some very tasty pie from the real gourd

After my grandmother passed I haven't tasted real pumpkin pie, too much trouble

Too much trouble ? Not at all. Let me tell you about trouble. It's when the wife goes through all the work and asks me how it tastes. I can tell you this. The answer she was looking for was not, "it tastes as good as store bought".

no but I made real Pumpkin Soup before.

Ingredients
4 Tbsp unsalted butter
2 medium yellow onions, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper
2 teaspoons curry powder
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
Pinch ground cayenne pepper (optional)
6 cups of chopped roasted pumpkin*
5 cups of chicken broth (or vegetable broth for vegetarian option)**
2 cups of milk
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup heavy cream

*To make pumpkin purée, cut a sugar pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and stringy stuff, lie face down on a tin-foil lined baking pan. Bake at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour. Cool, scoop out the flesh. Freeze whatever you don't use for future use.

**If cooking gluten-free, use gluten-free broth.

Yes. We have a cookbook that belonged to my wife's Grandmother and it has an old home recipe for pumpkin pie, including the pie shell. When our daughter was in Elementary School, we set out a Jack-O-Lantern on the front porch. It was from a pumpkin that we had gone out to a farm and selected. Rather than cut the face into the pumpkin, we gave Melissa a Sharpee pen and let her draw the face. After Halloween we brought it in and kept it until just before Thanksgiving when we cut it open, and got the meat out of it. After cutting it into little chunks, we began the cookdown. It takes a long long time to cook down a pumpkin if the meat is fresh and hard.

On one occasion when I went to the kitchen to check on it, I failed to put the lid back on the boiler. My wife heard something making an unusual noise and went to check it out. Well, the pumpkin was bubbling like Mt.Kilauea before an eruption. It had shot pumpkin out all over the floor, the stove, the nearby counters, the overhead cabinets and even the ceiling.

That was some 30 years ago and the incident still comes up around Thanksgiving most years.

Yup, we do it once in awhile. Does take a while to cook it down. I remember one year I forgot to ad sugar to the mix. (You should never drink and dance in the kitchen while making pumpkin pie kids!) I tried to eat it and pretend it was good. Couldn't do it. It's amazing that after all the good pies you make it only takes one bad one to be the one they talk about for years.

I have used leftover Halloween pumpkin internals for pie on several occasions. The final relult was good but not a lot better than using canned pumpkin.

Nelson

Every time you open a can of Pumpkin, you do that little part to keep a paycheck going to someone. Just make sure to check the label and pay the extra ten cents to buy the American raised and canned pumpkin. That said, my grandmas pumpkin pie recipe is the finest thing I've tasted, and it calls for canned. One year my brother decided to make a pie directly from raw pumpkin. It was stringy, very strange texture, and the flavor was not on par with grandmas recipe.

My sister makes it every year. Much better than canned. We do a day at the pumpkin patch, get to her place, clean pumpkins, bake seeds, she does pies, we hang out and play with fire, games, good times...

Now I'm missing fall. Boonie, DAMN YOU!!!

Lori does. We get organic pumpkin from the local farmer's market. Best tasting pies ever.

quote Originally posted by Boondawg: Or Mincemeat with REAL meat?

My wife made a couple of pumpkin pies last October from REAL pumpkins... it was AWESOME... can't say it enough. Don't know what the recipies were, but I can say that the pies tasted totally different depending on the pumpkin.

Real Mincemeat

Ingredients:

4 pounds venison, elk, or beef
Water
2 1/2 cups suet, finely chopped or grated*
7 1/2 cups chopped tart apples
3 cups liquid (liquid from meat of your choice it was cooked in)
5 cups granulated sugar
3 cups apple cider
1 cup molasses
1/2 cup cider vinegar
3 cups raisins
2 tablespoons ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon ground cloves
2 tablespoons ground allspice
2 tablespoons ground nutmeg
Juice of 2 lemons
Juice of 2 oranges
1 cup brandy or sherry

*Suet is firm beef fat. You need to ask your butcher for this.

Preparation:

Trim fat from meat of your choice.

In a large heavy pan over medium heat, place meat; cover with water and simmer until the meat is tender. Remove from heat and refrigerate meat in the cooking liquid overnight.

Remove from refrigerator and remove meat from liquid. Remove all fat from top of liquid; reserve liquid. Separate meat from bones, discard bones. Chop cooked meat into small cubes.

In a large pot, combine meat cubes, suet, apples, reserved liquid, sugar, apple cider, molasses, cider vinegar, raisins, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, nutmeg, lemon juice, and orange juice; simmer for 2 hours. remove from heat. Add brandy or sherry and mix together.

Refrigerate or pack in hot sterile jars and seal. May also be stored in the freezer.

My wife does on the years we get a pumpkin out of our garden, don’t know how she does it! but I enjoy the magic. The rest of the time we buy the canned pumpkin pack. I blame at least 5 pounds per winter on pumpkin pie!