Observations About Pumpkin Pie

1. It's so much more fulfilling to make it from actual pumpkins as opposed to the canned pumpkin.
   
   I haven't the foggiest idea why but there was something overwhelmingly joyful about scooping the baked pumpkin from the skins after pulling them out of the hot oven. I've never done that before and I was giddy like a little kid on a pony farm as I watched the soft warm cooked pumpkin pulling away from the tiny layer of skin that had previously been the hard solid rind (or what I thought was a rind). Fascinating to say the least! Of course my two year old son was observing the process so that might have added a bit of pizzazz the whole thing.
   
2. Similarly I will mix up dough and roll it out every single time I bake any sort of pie instead of getting the pre-made pie dough.
   
   I love getting flour everywhere and hoping that this time the crust will turn out just right (it never does/ mine is always quite "homemade" at the edges). I love using a rolling pin. I love having my kiddo help roll out the pie dough and jokingly snapping at him when he pops a broken bit of dough in his mouth.
   
3. Crushing up the baked pumpkin with your hands so that it looks perfectly pureed is not the same as pureeing it.
   
   It looked pureed. Little Abe put all the pie ingredients into the mixing bowl with our lovely "pureed" pumpkin. Then mommy took the electric beater to the bowl and... OOOPPPSSS!!! There was most definitely pumpkin pie filling splattered all over the entire kitchen, fridge, cookbook, table, me, little Abe... everywhere! It was kind of awesome though. The little pumpkin strands that our fingers weren't able to genuinely puree whipped up in the beaters and flung bits of filling all over. Little Abe was startled. I laughed pretty hard. Then I got out the blender and had a second go at pureeing the fresh baked pumpkin.
   
4. Totally from scratch, fresh baked pumpkin pie will take all morning to make!
   
   15 minutes to gut the pumpkins then 45 minutes of them baking at 375F. We made the pie dough while the pumpkins were cooking but the dough was supposed to chill for 20 minutes before being rolled out. Then the crust was supposed to chill for 20 minutes before being baked. Then the crust had to bake for 20 minutes before the filling went it. We made the filling while the crust was baking but there was some extra clean up time for that process, hehe. Then the pie baked for 45 minutes (my oven is a bit on the cooler side/ it should have been more like 40 minutes). The beautiful pie just came out of the oven and is cooling now.

I'll post pie photos for certain later this evening! This big helper ^ is napping now. And his mom is sitting here typing away and smelling hot pumpkin pie cooling in the kitchen. I'm pretty sure our 2 hours of hard work this morning will be well worth it. And you know I've got a carton of heavy whipping cream in the fridge to top off the pie with fresh made whipped cream when the eating time comes!