A purdy decent substitute for pumpkin pie

[levertovfan]

Squash and pumpkin (pumpkin being a variety of squash) tend to.. hem!.. temporarily incapacitate me, which is very sad, because I love the taste of pumpkin pie, as well as many other squash dishes. Historically, I have compensated for this by making persimmon custard pie. However, my persimmon custard pie did not work out terribly well this Thanksgiving, because my mother pressured me to use substandard Fuyu persimmons from her kitchen. This pie gave me the idea of using half sweet potato to half persimmon pulp in the pie to compensate for some of the extremes that substandard persimmons can sometimes exhibit. So tonight, I made a sweet potato-persimmon pie. I'd say it's an even better substitute in texture and taste for pumpkin than persimmon custard--my step-mother, who had real pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving, even said that it tasted like pumpkin pie.

One store-bought graham cracker crust
1 egg
1 cup milk or half and half
3 normal spoonfuls of brown sugar
1 tbs cornstarch
1 large hachiya persimmon
1 cup of cooked sweet potato or yam
Cinnamon, nutmeg, and ground cloves to taste

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Quarter the persimmons and scoop the pulp out from the persimmon skin. Dissolve the cornstarch in the persimmon pulp. Add all of the rest of the raw ingredients and blend. Pour into the pie crust. Bake for 10 minutes at 450 and then reduce the heat to 350 and cook for 50 more minutes. Yum!

Comments

[darthbitsy.livejournal.com]

I never would have thought to use persimmon. I would have just made sweet potato pie for you (which I prefer to pumpkin pie).

[levertovfan.livejournal.com]

Point appreciated. You know, the few times I've had sweet potato pie I've thought it was heavier than I generally like in desserts (unless they contain chocolate), but I should definitely make it a point to learn more about (read: sample) sweet potato pie and especially lighter sweet potato pies.

[my-sihaya.livejournal.com]

Um, this sounds amazing. I've been wanting to make a sweet potato pie for a couple of weeks now -- did you read my mind?

[levertovfan.livejournal.com]

ESP, check?... uh, no. Stomach, check?... why, yes.