Carol Frey, a Stanwood mother of two, likes to encourage people to eat fresh from the farm.
In a column earlier this month in the Port Susan Farmers Market newsletter, Frey, 39, wrote about roasting Northwest heritage sweet meat squash for pumpkin pie.
Sweet meats are intimidating, big, blue-green squash. Probably not the first thing most people would pick up to make a pie. (Although Frey inspired us to try a sweet meat for Thanksgiving.)
Also good for pie, Frey said, are almost any kind of squash, including orange sugar pumpkins, which most people think is used in store-bought cans of pumpkin.
Not true, said Frey.
“Canned pumpkin comes from (Dickinson) squash … which is a lumpy, pale tan creature, with flesh that is creamier and denser than the usual jack-o’-lantern pumpkin.”
Not all pumpkins need to be jack-o’-lanterns, and cooking with squash grown in your own garden or from your local farmer is just as easy as making a trip to the grocery for a can of pumpkin, Frey said.
“The convenience of opening a can, rather than cooking from scratch, is just about your kitchen habits,” Frey said. “So many kitchen skills may seem like an unnecessary bother until you do them a few times and they just become habit and it turns out that they’re no trouble at all. The first time might not be perfect, simply because it’s not familiar territory.”
Frey said she gets her kids involved in the pie-making process by having them scoop the seeds and strings from the inside of the squash.
“Then it takes almost no effort to cook the thing,” Frey said. “I often add a half of a sweet potato to add richness to the pie. And I use brown sugar and I like my seasoning strong.”
We don’t have a test kitchen at The Herald, so we headed to the home of Phyllis Fiege in south Snohomish County to make two pies from scratch. There, we used her homemade pie crust and her mother’s pumpkin pie recipe.
As Frey predicted, the finished product wasn’t perfect. We learned that you don’t want to beat the eggs or try to get by with a potato masher to prepare the roasted pumpkin. But the process was satisfying and the pie tasted great.
Gale Fiege: 425-339-3427; gfiege@heraldnet.com. Twitter: @galefiege. The writer is the daughter of Phyllis Fiege and granddaughter of the late Coral Eckstein.
Coral Eusey Eckstein’s pumpkin pie filling
To start, wash your pumpkin, cut it crosswise and remove the seeds and strings.
Slice it, place on cookie sheet and roast at 350 degrees until tender.
Scoop the pulp from the shell and put it through a ricer (or food processor).
For one pie:
1 1/2 cups of pureed pumpkin
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1 pinch dried ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 cup milk
Slowly blend the above ingredients. When mixed well, pour into pie shell, bake in a pre-heated 450-degree oven for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 325 degrees for an additional 30 minutes or so.
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