Happy thanksgiving! Continuing on with my butternut squash adventures, I roasted and puréed some butternut squash to make pie for thanksgiving. I wasn’t sure how it would go, but I had enough squash so that if it were a disaster, I could try again. That is the joy of the giant butternut squash. About a million years ago a friend of mine talked about a pumpkin chiffon pie and how it was delicious. This year, since it is a pandemic and thanksgiving was not going to be the usual potluck of feasting friends packed around a table, I decided to attempt a non-traditional pie. The nice thing about a chiffon pie is it has all the flavour of the traditional pie, but it isn’t as dense (or some might say stodgy). The drawback is, you do have to make it the night before because it has to set overnight. Here is what I did.

I used the recipe from Bon Appétit which uses gelatin, eggs, and dairy.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.bonappetit.com/recipe/pumpkin-chiffon-pie/amp

I didn’t have pumpkin, so I used butternut squash, which worked beautifully. Also, I didn’t have graham crackers, so I used gingernuts which I think were a much better choice. The ginger is spicy and lovely against the filling. If you want to make this plant-based, I’m certain you can use any non-dairy substitute for the milk with no problem. It would take some experimenting to sort out egg substitutes (maybe Oatly custard for milk and egg yolks and aquafaba for the egg whites?) and to get the right amount of agar agar for gelatin (I don’t think it is a 1:1 substitute). I don’t think it is impossible to sort out, but it is worth a try because it is a great pie. In any case, if these ingredients are ones you use, I basically followed the recipe, except using squash and gingernuts, and the pie was absolutely fantastic.