Diane - A word of warning on the pecans...they will not keep long if they are cracked unless you freeze them. Of course that may not be a problem, if you are eating them that fast. LOL The reason that I know this is that my niece gave me a bag of cracked ones one time and I left them in the bag for a little too long. One day I opened the door to the room where they were and I had about a thousand littles moths flying around. They had hatched out and been well fed in the bag of pecans. Diane - You have come to the right place for the piecrust. I cannot even stand the thought of using lard and I think it would be way to much trouble if I had to do the frozen chipped butter thing, or the ice water thing that some people do. Warning: You are going to think this ingredient list looks funny, but give it a try. Make sure you have waxed paper. 2 cups flour (scant) 1 teaspon salt 1/2 cup cooking oil 1/4 cup buttermilk You can stir this with a spoon and it should be a soft dough. It will be much softer to roll out than most pie crusts. The trick is in handling the crust, so read this part carefully. Take out a little more than half for the bottom crust and place it between two sheets of waxed paper. Roll out with a rolling pen. After you have rolled it to the proper thickness, remove the top sheet of paper by carefully pulling it from one side. Lay it back down on the dough again. That was just to release it from the paper and make it release better later on. With both sheets back in place, flip the entire thing over so the bottom piece of paper is now the top piece. Remove the paper that is now on top and set it aside. Now here is the tricky part. Pick up the dough, still on the paper, by using both hands placed about 2/3 back on the crust and your pie pan in front of you. Let 2/3 hang toward you and let the 1/3 drop back over your hands. Starting with the 2/3 part, place it in your pan with the paper still attached. As you lay it down, the paper is now on top. Now slowly peel off the paper. This sounds like it slow process, but it really isn't after you get the hang of handling the dough. If you have a problem, just patch it. Since you didn't add more flour in the rolling out process, you can throw the scraps back into the bowl and use them as part of the next crust. I have quadrupled this recipe several times without any difficulty but I would suggest you make it as a single pie the first time so you know how the dough should feel. I predict you will never go back, once you have tried this one. Very little mess to clean up since the rolling pin never touched the crust, and there is no flour mess to contend with.

Try www.equal.com. Here is a direct link to their pumpkin pie recipe. Here is a link that might be useful: Equal's Pumpkin Pie

I have a recipe for yeast rolls that use pumpkin or squash puree, along with whole wheat flour, the kids love them. I've had pumpkin ravioli in a sage and browned butter sauce, it was really good. If you don't want to make your own pasta you can use wonton wrappers. I've added pumpkin to hummus and it was pretty good too. I've stirred pureed pumpkin or squash into chili and lentil soup, but if your chili packs a punch at all, you won't taste it in there. Good luck, I'm trying to find some way to use up 72 butternut squash, LOL. Good think I like squash and I can use it to make a fake "pumpkin" pie, Mother loves that. Annie

Generally, sweets, bready things and fats freeze well. Nuts (enough fat) freeze well. Therefore, pie freezes well, and pecan pie specifically freezes well. Watery and celular things freeze less well, so you have to be more careful with vegetables especially, and with meats and liquid dairy. So a low-fat yoghurt cheese pie will be harder to freeze and thaw nicely.