Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie from Scratch

Well, not really pumpkin. In this case I made a butternut squash pie -- it just doesn't sound right. I wanted to make it gluten free (and I didn't feel like making my usual crust which is a lot more work). I also needed to make a substitution: I had no evaporated milk in the house.



First up: roast the squash.
I peeled the butternut squash and hacked it into about 1-inch chunks (after removing the seeds). Tossed with olive oil and my roasting salt blend. And roasted for 20 minutes at 425 degrees F in the with the convection on.

I probably should have turned them half way through, as is my custom, but I didn't.

Now for the condensed milk. I saw a tip on the web that you can just use 2/3 cup dry milk and 3/4 cup water to substitute for condensed milk, so I thought I'd give that a try. Lots easier than a trip to the store, I have wanted to find things that I can work through my dry milk stores so they get turned over with time, and it seemed to make sense since the main complaint about dry milk is that it tastes cooked which is the same objection to evaporated milk. This is a trick I am going to add to my bag-o-tricks.

 Now for  a gluten free easy faux crust:
I applied an ample amount (more than 1 Tbs) of butter to each pan.

Then put in about 1 1/2 mason jar lid's full of nut meal (hazelnut in one, almond in the other). Enough so that after whatever has stuck to the butter has done so, there is still a little left to slosh around. That sloshy stuff gets patted down. And there you go.

 For the filling:
I pureed the roasted and cooled squash (about 2 cups) in the food processor. Added 4 eggs, whirr. Added 1 1/2 cup sugar and 1 1/2 Tbs of fine spices. (I skipped the salt, since there was some in the squash).  And finally drizzled in the substitute "evaporated milk" with the whirrer whirring. This then got poured into the pie pans.

Preheat oven at 425, then turn down to 350 and bake for an hour. (Recipe called for 15 minutes at the high heat, but I have two pizza stones I leave in the oven and have had problems with my pies coming out over-brown).

Whipped up some cream and had a very tasty dessert.

Next time: you may have noticed that some of the early pictures show three pie pans, but I only ended up with two pies. In the past I always seemed to end up with too much filling or two pies. This time I had too little for three. Maybe I should wait to make up the third crust until I've done the pour and can get a sense if two will do.