We share with you our recipes, reviews, tips and thoughts on building a happy home together through food.
Christmas is the last true time in the year when we all get to cheat on our little personal food promises, before the week of the Resolutions is upon us. These can be little promises like “I will eat only one slice of pie for dessert”, or “I will not drink an alcoholic beverage before 5pm”, or “I will limit myself to just a little of that delicious, artery clogging stuffing that Aunt Edna prepared”. Or they can be bigger ones like “I will never use ready-made pie filling”.
Confession time – I broke that last one because I really wanted pumpkin pie for Christmas, and since we were only cooking for a small, intimate gathering of exactly 3 and already had 6 dishes lined up – I just didnt think whipping up a pie from scratch was worth it; and in the end, since I got an extra hour to join in a game of Monopoly with the wifey and the little brother (the other guests at this cozy little celebration) it definitely was the right decision I would say!
Since I had the oven cranked up to prepare some of the other items, it didn’t take much time to throw in this pie (actually got TWO pies from the one can) at the beginning of the evening – allowing for the couple of hours needed to fully cool ensure we had a perfectly set, delicious dessert at the end of gorging on the other items. A couple of homemade touches ensured the pie did not taste like it just came out of a can!
I always have a few Keebler Ready-to-use graham cracker crusts on hand, so I didn’t even have to go through the motions of unrolling a frozen pie crust; I rather prefer the grainy texture of such crusts with the velvety pumpkin pie in any case. Grating some fresh nutmeg over the filling, a few cracks of the sea-salt grinder to just add a bit of savory to the pie and a few dollops of whipped cream once the pie was done cooling and voila – my craving for pumpkin pie was satisfied without too much of an effort. We all are allowed to cheat on some of our food philosophies during Christmas, right? After all, a rolly-polly old man sneaking in a few cookies way past his bedtime is a ritual thoroughly ingrained into this time of the year!
THE RECIPE: EASY PUMPKIN PIE (makes 2 pies)
YOU’ll NEED:
- 1 can pre-prepared Pumpkin Pie filling (I used Libby’s)
- 2 Keebler ready-to-use Graham Cracker pie crusts
- 2 large eggs
- 1 5 fl.-oz can (or 2/3 cup) evaporate milk
- 1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
THE METHOD
- Preheat oven to 425°F
- Mix pumpkin pie mix, evaporated milk and eggs in large bowl.Use a small whisk or spatula to mix. Grate nutmeg over mix.
- Pour the mix into the pie crusts, half of the mix in each.
- Put the pie crusts in the oven for 15 mins.
- Reduce heat to 350° F and continue baking for another 40 to 50 mins. You’ll know that the pie is done when a knife inserted into the center comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and let cool for 2 hours before serving with a dollop of whipped cream on top.
OTHER NOTES:
- Halfway through the cooking time, cover the edges of the pie with foil if you dont want the crust to brown too much. The Keebler crusts come in a foil base of their own, and using those edges to cover up the edges of the crust works well for me.
- Use a chocolate graham cracker crust for one of the pies for a twist; the pumpkin with the chocolate is a nice change.
- Leftovers should be refrigerated, not frozen.
- This recipe is based on the one on the pack of pumpkin pie mix itself; sometimes these mass-consumed recipes actually work perfectly well!
