Traditional Pumpkin Pie

Halloween is over, the leaves are falling, and the holidays are coming up. Today I'm going to begin a new feature: Holiday Cooking the Traditional Way and the Holly Way. I've been a novice cook for about 8 years now and I've learned some lessons along the way. One of the most important things I've learned is that you can make delicious homemade holiday dishes without having to do everything "the old fashioned way". I'm going to share my favorite simple and traditional recipes for pumpkin pie, macaroni and cheese, and turkey during the month of November.

Today's feature is Traditional Pumpkin Pie. I remember the first time I made pumpkin pie. I used my Great Aunt Betty's recipe which called for canned pumpkin (instead of fresh, thankfully), spices, sugar, eggs, and half and half. I carefully measured and mixed all the ingredients, poured the mixture into the pie crust, and gently put the pie into the oven (but I managed to spill some of the pie mixture into the oven anyway). When the pie was done, well, it didn't look that great but it tasted good. After all that work and cleanup, I realized that my efforts weren't much better than what I could buy at the grocery store and weren't nearly as good as Aunt Betty's (perhaps the secret ingredient was patience). I don't have Aunt Betty's recipe, but here is the recipe for Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie:

Ingredients:

• 1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1 (15 ounce) can LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can NESTLE® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
2. Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell.
3. Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 F.; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. (Do not freeze as this will cause the crust to separate from the filling.)

Next time, I'm going to post my no-bake recipe for Double Layer Pumpkin Pie that tastes just as good but takes half the effort.