Pure Hunger

I feel honesty is the most important virtue in a relationship. Unless you are cooking and then all bets are off. I steer clear of obvious deception in my personal life but I gobble up any opportunity to trick those who consume my food. Not in any harmful or vindictive manner but in a way that pleasantly surprises others. The most recent opportunity at deception was far to wonderful to pass up. My mother is typically not able to enjoy pumpkin pie with the rest of the family for the holiday season as she is very allergic to pumpkin. She recently tried this recipe, due to the generosity of two wonderful gentlemen that she knows, and was delightfully surprised. They were kind enough to share their family recipe and she immediately handed it over to me, raised an eyebrow, and we set out to deceive our family.

Ingredients

1 pie crust
2 cups carrots, cut in 1 inch chunks, about 5 carrots
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp cloves
1 tsp vanilla

We were unbelievably successful. The best guesses anyone had about the contents of the pie were that it was pumpkin or some other squash. I can also say the actual making of the pie was incredibly cheap and easy.

While this is the exact recipe I was given, I substituted many of the spices for 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice, 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp ginger. In the future, I would use fresh spices and add about 1/4-1/2 tsp more of each, but I also love a spicy pie. If you think I’m pulling the wool over your eyes with this recipe, just give it a try, it won’t hurt, at least not too much.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Boil carrots in water for 6-10 min or until very soft.

Place all ingredients in blender and blend until smooth. Transfer mixture into pie crust.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove pie from oven, decrease temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 35-45 minutes or until puffed into a dome.

Allow pie to cool about 30 minutes and transfer to refrigerator. Consume with whipped creme and after everyone has finished their last bite, slyly ask if they noticed anything different.