Homemade Pumpkin Pie

Kroger has a bin of pumpkins with the vegetables.  They are about medium size.  The sign said 2 for $5 so I picked out 2 cute looking guys and brought them home!  They sat around for a couple of days when Preston asked me what I was going to do with them.  "What do you mean?" I said, "They are decoration"  It was at this point that Preston pointed out to me that those were cooking pumpkins....like for pie.  Whaaaaaat?! I picked one of them up, rolled it around in my hand and saw the sticker that I had still not removed.  Clear as day, "Pie Pumpkin".  Well, well, well...if it isn't so.  Naturally I went straight to Pinterest to find a recipe.

It was a 2 day process, but I did it!  I baked my first pumpkin pie from a real pumpkin.  No canned stuff here.  Nope.  You first have to roast the pie then let it set over night THEN you can make it into the filling.  Here is my camera play by play.

Our pumpkins!  

I picked the larger one, removed the stem, and cut it in half.

Clean out all the "guts"

Save the seeds if you like, we roasted ours...yummy

Coat the inside NOT the outside, the inside of the pumpkin with vegetable oil.  The inside is the side that you carved all the guts out of.  I used a cooking brush.  Place them cut side down in a roasting pan.  Add 1 cup of water and cook!

This is what it looked like when finished. Ewwww

Place on a cooling rake until cool enough you are able to hold them for the scooping

Scoop out the guts and place in a sieve to drain over night with either a paper towel or coffee filter.  (Place saran wrap over the top)

Next day....you mix the pumpkin with some sugar, evaporated milk, eggs, and pumpkin pie spices.  Place in pie crust.....and.....

Homemade Pumpkin Pie

It was super easy and taste waaaay better than a can.  The complete recipe can be found here.  The recipe gives you 2 options for the filling.  You can either prepare it with heavy cream and spices or follow the recipe on the can of canned filling.  You see, the pumpkin that you roasted and sit over night is the exact same thing as in the can.  So all I did was just look that up and it worked perfectly.  I hope everyone tries to make their own pumpkin pie this season!  I will never do canned again. (unless I'm super busy and don't have time)