Latino Pumpkin Pie from scratch

Neighbor Rollin said to me the other day, "The old lady is occupied tomorrow" (in so many words). "Would you like to-"
"- make a pumpkin pie from scratch?" I interjected.
He seemed OK with this. But he forgot that I was obsessed with this, and on Friday evening, I ran upstairs to with a cut up curcurbita, which the young woman at the Park Slope Key Foods told me was like a "Spanish pumpkin" that her ma uses all the time in cooking.

First we made a pate brisee. Or as Mark Bittman calls it, a flaky pie crust. You have to basically mix 1 cup and a bit of flour (cold) in a cold bow, with about 3/8 c. of butter (also very cold) cut into chunks, mixed with 1/4 teas of salt (doesn't have to be cold) and about 1/4 c. of very cold water. You cut the butter into the flour until its a crumbly mess, and then you add about 1 very cold Tablespoon at a time, and mix. When it just about barely holds together, stick it in the fridge for about an hour.

In the meantime, we ate this crazy mess of vegetables that I had laying around (from the CSA) in an Asian style sauce with quinoa:

Not appetizing to look at, but pretty decent tasting. A ginger overload

Next, we roasted the curcurbita in a pan, covered with tin foil, (cut into reasonable chunks) for about 45 minutes, until tender. We passed this through a blender, which was fun but it was very wet and I kinda freaked.

We pressed the dough out on the marginally clean table, and molded it. Stuck it in 425 degree oven for partial pre-baking, with Goya kidney beans as the pie weights (and a few fork stabs for good measure):

after about 20 minutes, voila:


We measured out 2 cups of the cooked curcurbita (very sweet), added less than 1/2 c. of hippie sugar (honey would have worked), a scant bit of salt, 2 teas. of cinnamon, 1/4 teas. of nutmeg (freshly grated), bit of cloves (also fresh), 1/2 teas of ginger powder, 2 eggs, and 2 little tins of unsweetened condensed milk:

And it took forever to cook, 15 minutes at 425, and then 45-60 minutes at 350 (you can check and if the crust is browning, tent tin foil over the crust only). It should be done when its puffed up a bit and the knife come out clean.

I wasn't able to stick around for the whole thing, because I had a phone date with Blokey but lukcily Rollin took a photo of the finished product:

(next time, more pate brisse, and a taller crust, because the crust was shallow and we had to bake some of the pumpkin filling in a separate ramekin. boo).