Cooking Up A Story: From Seed to Pumpkin

Fall is in the air and that means pumpkins are everywhere, from the market to your own front porch. Since we've been cooking so many pumpkin recipes this year, the Kid and I decided to get to know this autumnal fruit (or is it a vegetable?) a little better with From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer. This book is part of our favorite science series, "Let's Read and Find Out Science" published by Collins.

Inside, you'll find answers to all your most pressing pumpkin questions, like whether the pumpkin is a fruit or a vegetable. Spoiler alert: it's a fruit. But seriously, they've included a nifty recipe for making your own roasted pumpkin seeds and a cool little science experiment that demonstrates how plants take water from the soil, so there's lots of ways to engage your budding scientist/horticulturalist with this book. But we decided if there's one thing pumpkins are good for, it's pie.

After our Humble Pie failure of a couple weeks ago, I looked to a higher power for pastry inspiration and found it in Julia Child's The Way to Cook. We scaled down her master recipe by half, which gave us enough dough to make at least four small pies (we only made two and froze the rest of the dough for later). We halved, removed the seeds from, and roasted our little pie pumpkin before removing the flesh to use in this recipe. If you're looking for a pumpkin pie recipe that is free of refined sugar, our recipe may be just the thing.

Pumpkin Pie Filling
(makes enough for 2 small pies, double this recipe if you are using a 9 inch pie shell)

• 1/2 of the flesh from a roasted small pie pumpkin (about 1 1/2 cups)
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• Dash of freshly grated ginger

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.
Combine all ingredients in a blender and let 'er rip. Once the mixture has blended to a smooth consistency, pour into prepared pie shells (you can blind bake them in advance if you like) and decorate with pumpkin pastry cut-out(s).
Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower temperature to 350 degrees for another 15 to 20 minutes. The filling will puff up slightly and the top will become a little glossy.
Remove from oven and allow to cool completely before serving.