Pies and Pumpkins

Our Front Door Organics Fresh Box had a pie pumpkin in it this week. I love pumpkin. I like it in curry, I like it steamed, I like it in bread and cake, but most of all I like it in pies. So I decided that my contribution to thanksgiving dinner this year would be pies. A vegan tourtierre, a pumpkin pie and a pumpkin cheesecake. I had baked the tourtierre some months back and only had to defrost it, for the pumpkin parts I had to go online and do some searching. I have never made a non-vegan pumpkin pie, and cheesecakes are still very new to me. I found two nice sounding recipes and other than screwing up on reducing the cheesecake (twice as much sugar as called for - but no one has complained), and the pumpkin pie being a liquid when I poured it into the shell (the vegan ones are always pudding like) they both turned out A#1! I love them, the missus loves em, and the baby likes the filling in the pumpkin pie a lot. I am going to attach all 3 recipies to this. I am not sure how that will go, perhaps I will just include them in this post rather than attach them. I have to go to the apple store right now and I don't have time to find some place to host my dorky little text file. So here are the recipes.

Tourtiere (Québec)

Ingredients
2 cups TVP
1 1/2 cups veggie stock
3 T margarine
2 cups each chopped onion and mushrooms
2 cups fine soft breadcrumbs
1 T pepper
1/2 T each salt, thyme, savory
1/4 T ginger
pinch cloves, nutmeg
3/4 cup beer or stock
pastry for two 10-inch pies, tops and bottoms

Preparation
In a LARGE frying pan (I use an electric one cause they're really big), melt the marg. and saute the onions and mushrooms. Cook over medium heat until consistency of a coarse puree.
Stir in bread crumbs.

By now, the TVP should have soaked up all the moisture and expanded to about 3 cups.
Add to the frying pan, and stir well to distribute.
Add seasonings, and cook about 5 minutes more.
Adjust seasonings to taste.

Add the Beer. Cook until the liquid has evaporated but the mixture is still moist.

Cool completely. Spoon into pastry-lined pie plates, cover with top crust, seal, crimp, and vent.

Bake at 450 for 15 minutes, then at 375 for an additional 30 to 40 minutes.

The pies can be frozen, unbaked, for up to a month.
Do not de-frost before baking.
I have had this recipe for years, I usually double it to have extra for freezing. I have left them frozen, well sealed, for up to a year and they have been fine. I am not sure who created the recipe originally, I got it from a veggie mailing list. I usually end up using double the beer called for, the TVP really soaks it up.


Southern Pumpkin Pie
A delicious pumpkin pie, spiced with ginger and cinnamon.

INGREDIENTS:

* 1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree, canned or fresh
* 3/4 cup sugar
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 1 teaspoon all-purpose flour
* 2 eggs, lightly beaten
* 1 cup evaporated milk, undiluted
* 2 tablespoons water
* 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 1 unbaked pastry shell (9-inch)

PREPARATION:
Combine pumpkin, sugar, salt, spices, and flour in a medium mixing bowl. Add eggs; mix well. Add evaporated milk, water, and vanilla; mix well. Pour into pastry-lined pie pan. Bake at 400° for 15 minutes; reduce heat to 350° and bake about 35 minutes longer, or until center is set.
I doubled the spices in this one, and added clove and nutmeg as well (same amounts as ginger.) I googled this, can't remember which site it was from - sorry. I was freaked out by how liquid this was. Do not over fill your crust (i had a wee spill.)


Pumpkin Cheesecake I
SUBMITTED BY: J M Thomas

"I'm glad my mother gave me this recipe. I think it's better than regular pumpkin pie, because it doesn't have a really strong pumpkin taste."
Original recipe yield: 16 servings
PREP TIME 20 Min
COOK TIME 50 Min
READY IN 1 Hr 10 Min

* 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
* 3/4 cup white sugar
* 1 (15 ounce) can pumpkin puree
* 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
* 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
* 2 eggs
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 prepared 8 inch pastry shells

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
2. Beat together the cream cheese and the sugar, add the pumpkin and the spices. Beat in eggs one at a time. Add salt. Beat until creamy. Pour the batter evenly into the two pastry shells.
3. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 50 minutes or until the knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Let cool then top with whipped topping, if desired.

I cut the ingredients for this one in half so I would just have one cake. Worked fine. I only had a chocolate graham crust and I am not crazy about the combo of chocolate and pumpkin, next time I will try just plain graham crust. This recipe came from allrecipes.com