Pumpkin Pie with an Homemade Crust (made with Oil)

The first day of my "pity party" (when my youngest moved to college), I was in a quandry (gotta love that word LOL) as to what to cook.  My daughter was an adventurous eater like I am and if I couldn't make homemade stirfry, kinda empanadas, or frosted sugar cookie bars, I didn't know what to make! 

I boo-hooed meditated in my bedroom until I could get myself together and then decided to cook for my man!  I put some boneless, skinless chicken breasts in a skillet with a tiny bit of oil and browned them, then added some of our favorite BBQ sauce and cooked them with a lid until they were juicy and saucy!  I also made a recipe I had been wanting to try for Easy Macaroni and Cheese, which did not turn out like I hoped, so I'm going to keep working on that recipe to make it a little better before posting.  But the BEST thing I made for him was a Homemade Pumpkin Pie.  It was delicious!  My hubby has RAVED about the pie I made.  Several times he told me, "Have I told you how delicious that pie is?"  I first accused him of "blowing smoke" to try to make me feel better, but he claims he really liked the "spicey-ness" of the pie!  I don't know entirely what his motivation was, but the pie was DELICIOUS!   

I didn't have any shortening to make a pie crust and so I dug around until I found a recipe for an oil crust in my old Betty Crocker's Cookbook.  It worked fine and turned out flaky and very delicious!  Here's how I made a homemade pumpkin pie with an oil pie crust AT HOME MY WAY:

Homemade Pie Crust (uses Oil)

(For 8 or 9 inch one-crust pie)

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 - 4 Tablespoons ice cold water

Mix flour and salt well.  Add oil and stir until flour/oil particles are the size of small peas.  Sprinkle with cold water, 1 Tablespoon at a time, mixing until all flour is moistened and pastry almost cleans the side of the bowl.  If pastry seems dry, add 1 Tablespoon of OIL (not water).  Gather pastry into a small disc shape.

I rolled this dough out on a floured surface using a gallon ziplock bag as a barrier between the dough and my rolling pin.  When rolling thin crust, that just seems to work better than having to keep adding flour which makes the crust tough.  I moved the square bag around on the dough and rolled until I got a crust big enough for my pie pan.  The dough kind of sticks to the bag and that makes it easy to move from the floured surface to the pie plate.  You could also roll it between some parchment paper or wax paper, I just didn't have any and as usual was "making do with what I had."

Place the crust in the pie pan, flatten, roll and pinch the edges.


Pumpkin filling:

1 can pumpkin (15 oz) (I used generic pumpkin because I'm cheap like that)
1 can evaporated milk (I used 1 1/2 cups of reg milk + 3 T milk powder because I didn't have any evaporated milk)
2 eggs, slightly beaten
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Thoroughly blend all "pie" ingredients and pour into the unbakd pie crust.  Bake for 15 minutes.  Reduce temperature to 350 degrees and bake 45 additional minutes or until a knife inserted near the center comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack for 2 hours.  Serve immediately or refrigerate.

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Around my Family Table