About those Pumpkin Pies

[digitS']

I guess that the most common filling for pumpkin pies in the US is Small Sugar (aka New England Pie) pumpkin. It is a Cucurbita pepo, so it is in the same species as Jack o'Lantern pumpkins and some others.

Another common choice according to what I've read is the Cushaw squash. That one is a Cucurbita mixta and not so closely related to the ones we usually think of as "pumpkins."

Except for when I've bought cans of pumpkin, these have never been in my pumpkin pies. Making these pies goes back to when I was a kid and would be sent out to get a Pink Banana Squash. I'd have to break that squash open with an axe on the chopping block .

Pink Banana is a Cucurbita maxima and since Burgess Buttercup does well in my garden where I live these days, I am continuing to use a C. maxima in my pumpkin pies. How about you? Do you have a traditional or not-so-traditional choice for pumpkin pies?

Steve

[Bobberman]

That picture made me want to go out a buy a pie tonight! I love pumpkin pie with whipped cream I think we are going to make a pie with Hubbard squash!

[digitS']

Another maxima! You won't be sorry.

I made the pie: 2, in fact. Well, DW made the crust. She was busy with her apple pie.

The cream? I forget . . . I used to whip cream after dipping it out of a wide-mouthed gallon jar . We had lots & lots of milk, & cream, & butter, & whipped cream! . . . a long time ago.

Steve

[stella1751]

When my family lived in Eastport, we got our milk from a farmer named Branson. Once a week, we would drive out to his place and leave him two empty 5-gallon pails, tall metal ones with lids that had our last name written on them in black magic marker. We would pick up two full ones.

When we got home, Mom would skim the cream off the top. Some of it was saved for whipped cream. The rest was put into Mason jars. While we (8 of us) watched television in the evening, we would shake Mason jars until butter formed. We would take our completed jars to Mom, who was in the kitchen shaping butter. The leftover fluid, buttermilk, was refrigerated for Dad, who was crazy for it.

It was a pretty good system. I miss real whipped cream!

[digitS']

We did the same thing, Stella! The thing with the Mason jars - 'cept it was in southern Oregon . Yeah, we'd pour it thru cheesecloth, sprinkle a little salt on the ball of butter and work it in!

There was a butter churn but . . . I'm a little accident prone. The gearing of the hand-operated eggbeaters used to get me aaallll the time! Couldn't very well be trusted with the butter churn and there was even some risk handing me a quart jar, 3/4 full of cream .

Steve

[DeborahL]

I once tried to make butter. I poured a pint of store bought cream in the blender and "churned".
I got Crisco.

[stella1751]

I once tried to make butter. I poured a pint of store bought cream in the blender and "churned".
I got Crisco.

I bet the shaking method (Mason jars) would work better. I wonder whether the "churn" on your blender whipped the cream instead of churning it. I've never used a churn. My grandparents' churn was, I believe, a tall wooden pail with a stick through a hole in the lid. I think the action was up and down on that, too, rather than circular.

[webmaster]

Shaking up and down works.

[digitS']

. . . never know what direction these HG threads will take, LOL.

Our butter churn looked like this:

[img]https://i54.tinypic.com/2zoksnk.jpg[/img]
same corroded lid & bent handle. says 6qt, how do you like the 90° corners to that jar ?

Dad had a cream separator stored in his garage absolutely forever! . . . decades after he had left the farm .

Steve

[DeborahL]

I read somewhere after the "Blender Butter" that the cream has to be room temperature and raw, not homogenized/pasteurized.

[digitS']

I bet that is right, Deborah!

LOL! Just looking at the picture is bringing back memories.

Imagine that you are a little kid. You've got that jar held down on the table and you are on your knees with the chair turned around backwards - because that's the way you like to "sit" at the kitchen table.

You are going to beat the band with that handle, 'round and 'round! The button is missing from your shirtsleeve because you've outgrown that shirt and the button broke off while you were reaching for something. Suddenly the corner of the cuff gets into the gearing and . . .



It's summer so you aren't wearing that long-sleeve shirt. You've got your favorite t-shirt on - the one with the broad and colorful horizontal stripes!

'Round and 'round that handle goes! Your hands are getting sweaty. The left one drifts further and further up the handle. You've got that jar held down real good - it isn't going anywhere but your hand is slipping as you are holding the jar down. Your thumb drops down on the top of that gear . . .



LOL!

Steve

[DeborahL]

Steve, when I was a kid (late 50's, early 60's) butter was Springfield brand margarine. Blue Bonnet and Imperial meant livin' high on the hog !

[jal_ut]

Mom always made pumpkin pie with what ever winter squash Dad had grown. Either Hubbard or Banana squash. I never saw her use a pumpkin. Pumpkins are for decorations. Butternut squash makes fine pie.

If churning butter from cream, it will come together quicker if you let the cream sour some before churning. Fresh churned butter is a much lighter color than store bought butter. It is also bland. Commercial butter has both coloring and salt added to it.

Yes, you can churn butter in a mixer, and yes, it may whip first, but keep stirring it and it will separate the butter from the buttermilk. That was the easiest way for us when we used to do it.

[DeborahL]

I'd love to try sweet potato pie, but I never see them in the stores.

[digitS']

Time to get out that mixing bowl, Deborah!

I grew purple sweet potatoes one year. A friend brought them back from your corner of the country.

The sweet potatoes didn't get of any size in my garden. (That was also Dad's experience years ago when he grew Georgia Jets. I thought they did okay but Dad's from New Mexico so, what do I know?)

Anyway, I'm trying to imagine a purple Sweet Potato Pie!

Steve

[DeborahL]

What's a mixing bowl?