Grammas, pies and much more

We spent some of our days in the holidays working on our food forest patch in the front yard.  Cleaning up, weeding and pulling out the old pumkin vines - and we found all these.

Our Gramma pumpkin harvest.  These Grammas have a thin wall and will not store well so we have to begin using them before they go off.  The biggest gramma in the forground split when we picked it - so we have to eat it now.

So a first for the season was a Gramma pie - made with a mix of recipes to match a favourite the description of Dad Grandmas pie.  The verdict being that it was maybe even better than Grandma's.

Our Gramma Pie recipe for those that have started their pumpkin or Gramma harvest and would like to give it a try.

We used about one quarter of our large Gramma (because it is not too sweet or strong in flavour) pumpkin for this recipe - but a slightly green butternut pumpkin would also work well. 

Cook about 1 kilo or gramma in a little water for half an hour - once cooked. Drain and gently squeeze / squish to remove excess fluid.  Mash with a fork and add 1 1/2 cups sugar, juice and grated rind of 1 lemon, 1/3 cup of sultanas, 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and 1 teaspoon of each nutmeg and cinnamon.  Mix and allow to cool.

To make the pastry, rub 150 grams of butter into 1 cup of each plain and self raising flour with a pinch of salt.  In a cup mix one egg with 2 tablespoons of sugar - add to flour / butter mix.  Mix well - add a little milk if necessary - roughly kneed the mix together and divide the dough into 2/3 and 1/3 portions.  Roll out the 2/3 portion of pastry to line the base of a greased pie dish - add the Gramma filling, and then roll out the last 1/3 of the pastry for the lid of the pie. Sprinkle top of pie with a little more sugar. Cut a breathing hole in the top of the pie. Bake in a moderate oven for about 1 hour.

Serve with ice-cream and / or cream. Enjoy - we did.

With only 1/4 quarter of the pumpkin used it was roast pumkin for the Sunday roast and now a large pot of pumkin soup is brewing.  And still half the pumpkin left.

What are your favourite pumpkin recipes? 

We still have a pile of Grammas to eat and more pumpkins to be harvested from the back yard - so I would love to hear what you do with your pumpkin harvest.