Holiday Magic

The Big D and I don't have a lot of holiday traditions. We've tried to get some over the years, but nothing has really stuck. That's usually because we are traveling somewhere and it's the sort of traveling that takes us away from our respective families and our everyday lives. We did this in the past because by combining vacation days with holidays, D could get bigger chunks of time off. Also, when I was at the University, winter holidays were the best time for me to get away without causing disruption for my students.

Now we've got a little one on the way and I'm wondering what sorts of things do I want her to grow up with. I remember one year D and I went to a pumpkin patch where I discovered pie pumpkins. Before that I had no idea that pies could come from the pumpkin. Well, let me restate that - I had no idea how easily pies could come from pumpkins.



That year I struggled a bit with roasting each pumpkin half, cooling and mashing to a consistency fit for pie. I was in graduate school and I remember thinking about the word "epistemology" while the pie was baking. Later, it felt like every time I took a bit of that pie, I questioned everything that I knew, how I knew it and how it was I came to know what I knew. A few days later I wrote up the recipe for the MacArthur newsletter (the generous program that funded my doctorate education) and cautioned everyone about what they filled their brains with while preparing and baking pie.

This year I steamed the pumpkin and used my immersion blender and everything went together smooth and easy.



I got so excited to eat it that I almost forgot to take a picture!

Now, this is what I think of as holiday magic. Pumpkin pie from a pumpkin.



And, I'm thinking this might be a good tradition to start for our little family.


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It's simple recipe that can be found here. I did just one pie and used 2/3rd of the recipe. I also used a little bit less sugar.