pumpkin pie, anyone?

I was reading Dana's post about pumpkin pie and other such tasty pumpkin treats, and my mouth started to water, and it took a matter of an hour before I began baking my own pumpkin pies.

I love pumpkin pie, and if you are one of my three siblings, or my parents, you know that pumpkin pie and I have a back story:

At some point during my childhood, my parents moved from purchasing small, usually useless gifts for their siblings for Christmas to making each of them a pie, which we delivered on Christmas Eve as a family.  One particular year when I was around 12-years-old, (picture me gangly and skinny with a flat chest--wait, weren't those miserable pubescent years supposed to help my body out; change it in some way?!)  Anyway, I and my three younger siblings were in the van, each holding a pie, more pies carefully placed on the floor, all ready to go out delivering.

At each stop, we weren't allowed to move even one inch from our seats until Mom opened the sliding door (that's right--this story is so old, our van only had one sliding door) and moved the pies on the floor to her seat in the front.  We were then to each set our respective pies carefully on the seat or floor in our spot as we got out.

As the night wore on, we had been to roughly half of the houses and my siblings and I had "caught the Christmas Spirit" (reads: we were bouncing off the walls of the van and getting extremely obnoxious.)  We were bouncing in our seats belting out the song, "Simply Having a Wonderful Christmas Time," at which point Mom told us to calm down and quit bouncing around because, "If one of you steps in one of the pies, you're going to have to eat the whole thing." 

Do you see where this is going?

Of course, at the very next house, after delivering the pie we all climbed scrambled like wild children back into the van where I put my waffle-stomping hiking shoes (which I wore for traction in the snow) right in the center of an uncovered pumpkin pie.

I felt horrible, I confessed, and then I continued to bounce around like a crazy with my siblings.  At each house, I had to either stay on the mat by the door, or take off my shoes so that I didn't grind pumpkin pie into the carpet, but still we were out-of-control hyper!

By the time we got home, I could see that Mom was frazzled, and I carried the damaged pie into the kitchen, cut it into pieces, and consumed the whole thing while the rest of my family was . . .

. . . come to think of it, what were they doing all together on Christmas Eve without noticing I was missing?! 

Mom and Dad came into the kitchen as I was finishing the last muddy, snow smooshed bites, and asked, "Did you eat the whole pie?!"

"Yes," I answered, feeling proud of myself since I carried out my own punishment and they hadn't even had to remind me.

"Oh, Audrey!  I wasn't serious.  That'll make you sick!" Mom responded, exasperated.  (I'm sure once I was in bed that night, she and Dad had a good laugh about how stupidly literal--or literally stupid, take your pick--I was about everything.)

Mom ended up being right.  Within an hour, I was puking pumpkin pie, and did so until my tummy felt better and probably most of the pumpkin pie had been flushed down the toilet.

Mom still tells that story to this day. 

Oh, and she has never again told me that if I stepped in the food I was going to have to eat the whole thing.
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Now, that story having been told, it's absolutely obscene that I love pumpkin pie as much as I do.

I use the recipe on the back of the Libby's can of pumpkin,

with one exception: instead of using two 9" deep dish pie shells,

I use three regular pie shells.  (I think you end up with less batter left over--IE: wasted.)

When it is all finished, I like to put it in the fridge pretty quick (because pumpkin pie is way better cold,) so that I can eat it as soon as possible--of course with a dollop of Cool Whip taller than the slice of pie.

Embarrassingly enough, I have been known to eat all three pies on my own within a matter of four-five days!  I like to tell myself that I've really only scarfed two pies worth because I use different crusts.  (That's much less appalling, right?)