Green Pumpkin Pie

For school this year Kellen is doing a unit study with the The Little House Collection (9 Volumes). There are many cooking lesson, most of which come from The Little House Cookbook: Frontier Foods from Laura Ingalls Wilder's Classic Stories. The cookbook tries to recreate the foods that the stories talk about. There are some interesting things in there, one of which is green pumpkin pie.

Green Pumpkin Pie
Double Pie crust
A Green Pumpkin (about 4 pounds)
Brown Sugar - 1 C
Ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon - small pinch of each
Vinegar - 1/3 C homemade or hard cider or 3 TB frozen cider concentrate
Butter - 1 tsp.

Preheat oven to 425 F. Butter the pie plate. Put the bottom layer of crust in the pie plate and chill the top crust.

Cut the pumpkin into quarters. Remove seeds and stringy parts. Peel and slice so that the slices resemble apples.

Cover the crust with brown sugar and spices. Then place the pumpkin on top. Pour the vinegar over them and add the butter on top. Lay the top crust on and crimp the edges. Vent the top. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce the heat to 350 F and bake another 35 to 40 minutes until nicely browned.

This was a pie made when the pantry was low. It was a special treat for the Ingalls'. It was said to taste like apple. The Appletons did not think it measured up, but then again, we are not going through a long winter with low food supplies.

I am out of green pumpkins, but if we were to try this again I would precook the pumpkin a bit. Even though the crust of our pie was a nice color, the pumpkin was still a bit too firm, and tasted squashy. I think if it were cooked first, as the zucchini is in zucchini strudel, it would improve the texture and taste.

We had fun making it, and we learned from it. That is the whole point, right?