Squash-Apple Pie

This is a picture of two halves of an acorn squash, being steamed in my patented handy-dandy steaming method. I put a metal colander upside down in my stew pot, add two inches of water, and put the squash on top. Cover, turn on the gas, and let things boil for 10 to 15 minutes until you can stick a fork through the squash. Once you have your cooked squash, you are ready to proceed to the pie. I made this pie at the beginning of a marathon day of cooking for a dinner party. I polished off four recipes and was still cooking at 7:15 when the guests came.

Since I bought the pie crust, and steamed the squash the night before, the pie was the easiest part. It went into the oven in less than 15 minutes and I moved on to cleaning the kitchen floor. The recipe does not specify what kind of squash you can use. Pumpkin would work as well as acorn squash, and probably you could use Hubbard squash as well. What you get has the signature taste of pumpkin pie, although it has different ingredients.

Squash-Apple Pie

1 cup cooked, mashed and sieved squash

1 cup thick, tart applesauce (I used unsweetened applesauce.)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup light brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon ginger

1/2 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1 unbaked ten-inch pie shell with stand-up edge

1. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

2. Place the squash (which, by the way, you can just mash with a fork. Don't worry about sieving it.) and applesauce in a bowl. Stir in the salt, brown sugar, cinnamon, ginger, mace and cloves.

3. Combine the eggs and cream and add to the squash mixture. Pour into the pie shell. Bake twenty minutes. Reduce oven heat to 350 degrees and bake twenty to twenty five minutes longer. (a knife inserted into filling should come out clean. Cool and chill

Makes eight servings.