Zapallo makes a great pumpkin pie

With the upcoming Thanksgiving, I decided I'd try my hand at a FROM SCRATCH pumpkin pie. Yes, a pumpkin pie without pumpkin in a can, (because no canned pumpkin here in Chile D: ). It turned out fantastic! It was just a trial, so I only made half of this recipe

For the "mashed, cooked pumpkin":

I bought one of those small zapallos (cost CH$1.500 at my local Tottus, could probably be found for cheaper elsewhere, or you could get a couple cortes de zapallo at the feria or La Vega), cut out a quarter of the pumpkin, scooped out the seeds and scraped off the "gunk", and chopped into chunks. I then put this in the microwave for 15 minutes (covered pyrex bowl), mixing up and pouring out any water every 5 minutes. (after cooling) I then cut off the skin, and mashed it up with a potato smasher. You could also use a potato-ricer, blender, stick blender, fork, etc.

I also made some substitutions in the recipe because I'm lazy: instead of the brown sugar and evaporated milk, I replaced it with condensed milk! Condensed milk is already sweetened! (plus, brown sugar is difficult to find here in Chile). The condensed milk adds a nice, almost caramel flavor to the pie.

I also added ground cloves, because I felt, how do you not add ground cloves to pumpkin pie!?

So, basically my ingredients (I only did half since it was a test batch):

• 1 1/4 cups mashed, cooked pumpkin
• half of a 396g can of condensed milk (so.... 198 grams)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

(I didn't cut down the cinnamon and ginger from the full recipe since I love strong spices, but I cut the nutmeg in half since I added cloves)

I just whisked it all together (didn't bother with a beater), poured into pie crust (I used 3 ramekins, not a big pie crust), cooked at 200C for about 35 minutes (until toothpick/fork comes out clean in the middle)

The pie filling turned out wonderful!

The pie crust... well, let's just say that apparently lard (manteca here in Chile) is not a good replacement for shortening... So good thing I did a test batch before our Thanksgiving dinner, lol!