I grew 4 small pie pumpkins this year in the garden and by golly gosh darnit, we're making pumpkin pie!



The pretty little 4 pumpkins luckily made exactly 2 cups of pureed pumpkin, which is just what I needed.  I cut them, seeded them (along with getting rid of stringy stuff), peeled them with a vegetable peeler, and brought out the ol' pressure cooker.  10 minutes of pressure cooking, and they were done.  These cooked chunks then went into my food mill, with the plate with the smallest holes to extract the water from them.  Then into a strainer for some further draining.







For the basic pie recipe, I went with this recipe from Simplyrecipes.com
The nutmeg was freshly grated, and the cardamon freshly ground.  Pre-baking, it looked like this:



The pie crust was homemade, courtesy of my Edna Lewis cookbook.  Yes, we used lard.  Yummy, wonderful, flaky pie crust making lard.

Now, of course, whipped cream is needed.  Break out the stand mixer.  1 1/2 cups of cream, plus about 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.  Sadly my own homemade vanilla extract needs another month or two.  Simply whip the cream and vanilla with the whisk attachment.  I decided not to add sugar, but you may if you wish.  After a couple of minutes, you get nice white fluffy deliciousness.    Whoa.  We still have lots of cream left and we are out of butter.  hmmmm.  Butter makin' time!
I rinsed out the bowl with the cream, as that has vanilla in it, and added the rest of the cream.  Again, whipping this.  I didn't add salt.  This goes through some fun stages.  Cream, smaller creamy bits as it breaks down, an almost total liquid stage, then...glorious butter formation.  When this happens, it's time to take the butter out.  If you plan on storing it, rinse and knead it under cold water for a few times until the water is clear.  Here are some photos for your perusal.
Whipped cream stage: (note the pumpkin seeds drying in the background)



Almost butter stage (this is just before it went into a total liquid mess)



The butter after it has formed, with the buttermilk left in the bottom.  Use, or rinse for later storage.  OR you can add fun stuff at this point.  Herbs, sun-dried tomatoes...whatever you wish.  Have fun!



Oh, and the finished pie.  I'm assuming it tastes great   If not, I'll let you know.