It's not too early for Pumpkin Pie...

Someone from church gave me a couple of pumpkins from their garden. I LOVE pumpkins. However, since it's only July I decided to use them to make fresh pumpkin puree and try to plant the seeds and see if I can get any pumpkins to grow for this fall! It's a little late in the season, apparently, but I'm hopeful.

I have never made fresh pumpkin before. You gut the pumpkin, discard the seeds and stringy stuff, and then cut the remaining pumpkin into sections. Then peel it, boil it and mash it.

I used my favorite Paula Deen recipe and made 2 fresh pumpkin pies for our young adults Bible study tonight. The recipe calls for 2 cups of pumpkin, but mine wasn't all that flavorful and the batter wasn't even orange so I used all of my pumpkin which was about 3 1/2 cups. Then I filled 2 pies with it rather than one.

It's not too early. No, definitely not. I sneaked a taste when I gave the boys each a skinny slice for a snack and it didn't disappoint! Using an actual pumpkin gave a fresher, mildly sweet flavor that's much fruitier than canned pumpkin. Jared's not a huge fan of pumpkin pie, but he liked this one!