Now, here in Bulgaria, pumpkin pie does not come easy. There really is no "quick" way to a delish pumpkin pie, since there is no canned pumpkin or pre-made pie crust. Lindsay really wanted pumpkin, so she found a recipe online that told us how to make the filling from fresh pumpkin, tiikveniik as it is fondly referred to in these parts. Roast or boil the pumpkin, mash, add ingredients and spices, pour into pie crust. No problem. We sent our requests in and our recipes so the school could purchase the ingredients for us to start prepping on Friday.
We showed up on Friday afternoon, around 4 to already find some ambitious souls in the cafeteria preparing their ingredients for the feast that was to follow the next day. I was snooping around the back of the cafeteria (which is a sketchy place on its own... circa 1955... pure communist design) and I walked around to corner to find....
... the LARGEST three pumpkins I had EVER seen before. I am kicking myself that I did not run home to fetch my camera because the next three hours were filled with the HILARITY that ensued as Lindsay attempted to get the pumpkins washed, cut into reasonable baking chunks, and then smashed up into puree... I will just describe the situation as best I can using as few sentences as possible...
Image #1: The utter jaw dropping shock in Lindsay's face as I showed her the size of the pumpkins. I am not sure how much they weighed, but they were heavy and around the size of a smallish medium sized exercise ball... like, way larger than your typical jack-o-latern. Plus they are white-ish... the orange pumpkins are not that great to eat.
Image #2: Lindsay wrestling with the pumpkins in the
industrial sized sink to get them cleaned. Turns out pumpkins are slippery when wet.
Image #3: SOmehow the pumpkins made it in one piece from the back room, to the sink, and then onto the table, where they slowly met their end. First a butcher knife... too small and whimpy. We then found a kitchen axe (not sure what the kitchen axe traditionally is used for. for that night, it was for hacking at the pumpkins).
Image #4: Beads of sweat slowly forming on Lindsay and Carmine's foreheads as they take turns with the axe to battle the pumpkins into smaller, more manageable pieces.
Image #5: The hysterical laughter coming from the school cafeteria lady who was there to help us in the kitchen. She was just standing off to the side and laughed as Carmine and Lindsay took turns with the axe. By now there were bits of pumpkin and chunks of the stuff flying all over the place... and the lunch lady just kept laughing.
FINALLY after some time has passed, the three giant pumpkins are into smaller hunks, and are spread out among about 6-8 platters to be put in the over to bake. Pumpkin needs to soften.
Image #6: Lindsay's slow anger and frustration as she realizes some of them are burning in these Communist era ovens but are still remaining uncooked and hard. Didn't quiet realize how hard it was to burn something and yet it still remain undercooked.
Eventually the pumpkin came out of the oven, there were several hands there to help pull the pumpkin apart and into a GIANT stove top pan. There would be pumpkin forever.... soooooo much.
All the while I had been making the pie crusts/dough with the ingredients and tools I was not totally familiar with. It was turning out okay, and we made a few preliminary pies to work out our timing and to familiarize ourselves with the ovens. They came out pretty well so I was happy.
Saturday though, was showtime. We had to make pies enough to feed about 150 people. We decided to make as many pies as we could, and that people would eat them or take home the extra. I think we ended up with something absurd, like 15 LARGE pies.... sooo much. There was still left over pumpkin.
The remainder of the pumpkin has been portioned off into bags.
Some people have already come to pick up some of it to use for their own cooking, but right now we have enough in our freezers to last for quite the long time!
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