No Soy Pumpkin Pie

You'll be carving a pumpkin with a knife, when someone at the table says, that's not what I call a life!" ...the Silver Jews make my moment.

I decided that since the holidays are coming up, and since I love pumpkin pie (and we have visitors in town from France who have never had it before) I would make a non-soy vegan pumpkin pie. Here are the ingredients:

for the crust I cheated and used an organic pie crust from Whole Foods, but it isn't hard to make. Here is a recipe I have used and liked for pie crust:

3 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp sea salt
¾ vegetable shortening (Earth Balance makes a good one)
5 to 6 tablespoons cold water

In a medium bowl with fork, lightly stir together flour and salt. With pastry blender or two knives used scissor fashion, cut in shortening until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle in cold water, a tablespoon at a time, mixing lightly with a fork after each addition until pastry just holds together. With hands, shape pastry into ball (makes two). On lightly floured surface with lightly floured rolling pin, roll ball into a 1/8 inch thick circle, 2 inches larger all around than pie plate. Roll half of circle onto rolling pin; transfer pastry to pie plate and unroll, easing into bottom and side of plate. (Improvised from a recipe from vegfamily)

1/2 small pumpkin (1 makes two pies) [a cup and a half to two cups]
1 1/8 cup nut milk (I made a macadamia/ brazil nut blend) [hazelnut works too]
3/4 agave, or more to taste (I didn't have enough, so I had to substitute a bit of honey, you can also substitute sugar) [or maple syrup and honey]
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
two knobs of fresh ginger, crushed or finely chopped
1/4 tsp allspice or cloves
3 tsp ground flax

I picked out a small organic pumpkin at the farmer's market for this pie. First split it into fourths, seed it (save the seeds - the are an excellent source of iron, zinc and magnesium) and bake the slices on a baking sheet for 45 minutes at 450 degrees. I made the nut milk while the pumpkin was baking (the recipe for which can be found linked above). Reset the temperature of the oven to 350 degrees.

After letting the pumpkin cool, remove the skin and put the pulp in a blender with the chilled nut milk, the spices, salt, vanilla, flax, and agave and give it a quick blend. Taste the concoction to make sure the sweetness is to your liking. Then, pour the blended golden mush into the pie crust, and bake for 1 hour at 350 degrees.

http://alucidspoonful.blogspot.com/2007/09/vegan-pumpkin-pie-without-soy.html