This past weekend, I attended a Q-fest where we took our ceramic (I took all
3 of my Kamados, others took Green Eggs) smokers to the Silver River State
Park in Florida.

One of the things that I cooked was a pumpkin pie. I got so many requests
for it, I've posted it on the Kamado forum, the Green Egg forum, and with
pictures on alt.binaries.food

Here's the copy and pasted version that I posted. Hope you enjoy it as much
as everyone did at the Q-Fest.


OK, as promised, here is the recipe from the book "The Frugal Gourmet Cooks
American" by Jeff Smith.

Comments including the changes that I made and recommendations follow the
original recipe.

Baked Whole Pumpkin
Serves 8
This dish was a favorite of George Washington. While it was called a pie in
the old days, it's certainly not what we call a pie now. Here the custard
pie is found inside the pumpkin and the whole thing is to be served up with a
bit of anticipation for a very different pumpkin desert.

1 pumpkin, 5-7 pounds ½ teaspoon freshly grated
nutmeg

6 whole eggs 1 teaspoon
cinnamon

2 cups whipping cream ¼ teaspoon ginger

½ cup brown sugar

1 Tablespoon molasses 2 Tablespoons butter

Cut the lid off the pumpkin just as you would for a Jack-O'-Lantern.

Remove the seeds and save for toasting later.

Mix the remaining ingredients together with the exception of the butter.
Fill the pumpkin with this mixture and top with the butter.

Cover with the pumpkin lid and place in a baking pan. Bake at 350° for 1-1½
hours, or until has set like a custard.

Serve from the pumpkin at your table, scraping some of the meat from the
pumpkin with each serving.

This is an interesting substitution for the usual pumpkin pie.





BOB's Notes:

For the Q-Fest, I couldn't find any 5-7 pound pumpkins, only 3-4 pounders, or
15 pounds and up. I finally found the 12 pound pumpkin that I brought. I
knew 4 pounds wouldn't be enough, and not knowing what would be cooking when,
I didn't know how much grill space would be available to cook 3 small
pumpkins.

I forgot to bring nutmeg, so I substituted Allspice, and probably added more
than ½ teaspoon.

Larger pumpkins cost much less per pound than the smaller "baking" pumpkins.

If there is any left, I, personally think the pie is better after
refrigeration.

Be sure not to forget the baking pan. The custard expands while baking, and
the butter makes a very hot fire with black smoke when it hits the charcoal.

While I usually reserve the heat deflector for pizza and breads, I think I'll
use one for the pie in the future.



BOB