Life is short. Cook dessert first.

Remember the Cheesy Seasonal display? Well, now there's only one pumpkin left. Cowering in horror.


Sacrificial Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust
Serves 2 for weeks and weeks (which is a good thing since those suckers cost beaucoup bucks.)

1) Appeased the kitchen gods with a slimy bathtub massacre.

2) Baked it, then satisfied my inner five-year-old who wishes I could smoosh stuff all day, every day.

3) I replaced 50% of the recipe's flour with smashed gingersnaps (because flour is a tasteless waste of calories), added lewd amounts of lard, and smooshed the ingredients together by hand. I tried not to cry out in pain as cookie shards shanked my palms cookie crumbs exfoliated my hands invigoratingly. (My inner five-year-old is done smooshing things for a while.)

4) I chilled the dough, floured the counter, then realized we have no rolling pins. I substituted a tall glass with surprising success.

Trying to transfer the perfectly-rolled dough, I discovered that it totally crumbled in my hands.
WIMPY, crust. Wimpy.
I angrily started tossing chunks into the pie pan with a slew of foul language. Amused and curious worried and thoughtful Mr. Matthewser heard the deluge and came to investigate. He showed his empathy by trying to steal some crust. A brief squabble ensued as I attemped to defend the meager dough resources.


Score:
Myself-- salvaged enough dough for thin crust. 8 points.
Jason-- generous helping of lardy gingersnap flour, PLUS he left floury hand prints on butt of my black sweatpants: 15 points. He resumed working on laptop (happily chewing).

I started to wonder if a single pumpkin sacrifice was a sufficient offering after all.

5) I managed to smoosh the dough into a pretty crust! Success. I carefully placed the crust into the oven. Returning after baking time... I found it inexplicably BURNT. Also, there were huge bubbles under the crust from air pockets expanding underneath.

I reread the recipe and saw that the temperature was correct, but I was supposed to fill it with "pie weights" to prevent bubbles. I put in the second crust, and set glass jars on it to prevent bubbles.

Bad idea.
(Although Jason is thrilled with all the spare crust to eat.)


6) WENT TO BED.

7) Woke up. Made coffee that I'm not supposed to drink. (Due to health issues that you don't want to know about, not to mention coffee makes me SWEAR AND ABUSE THE CAPS LOCK KEY!!!!)


8) Now fully drugged, I smashed more cookies with an effing vengeance. IT FELT EXCELLENT. I repeated Step Three, and said SAYONARA to all the remaining epidermis on my hands.

Perhaps this will make the pie crust light and flakey.







9) Made pretty pie crust #3. Made filling.

Let me take this moment to say that "Sweetened Evaporated Milk" DISGUSTS ME. All I can think of is leftover cereal milk that's been sitting in the sink for a week. 

And...is the filling supposed to look like that? I'm concerned.

10) We pulled them out of the oven. After waiting some 90 cliffhanging minutes for them to set...
OH MY GLÖGG THEY'RE DELICIOUS!!!

Looks like only one will survive until Thursday.

*This is the recipe I used, more or less. From the one & only.