Making Pumpkin Pie

These are the pumpkins we harvested from the farm. The smaller ones are sugar pumpkins, and the two big, red ones are Cinderella pumpkins. We decided to cook a Cinderella pumpkin and make it into pumpkin pie.

First we had to chop up the pumpkin into pieces. This is hard, but very important work. Preschool aged children want to feel needed, important, and powerful, and cooking allows them to be all of these things.

The pumpkin pieces were steamed until they were soft.

Then we mashed them up with a potato masher. The pumpkin was very orange.

Another skill we are learning is how to crack an egg. It takes gentleness and control. The children struggle with pushing their thumbs into the shell instead of pulling the two halves apart. Guess we need to keep cooking and practicing!

What ingredient is this? Sweetened, condensed milk. The kids found this very interesting, and of course, like good chefs, we needed to taste our ingredients as we added them. This one got an enthusiastic, "Yum!"

Now the molasses was another story. Such white milk, and such black molasses.

Let's have a taste... Some likes it, and some didn't. Will we be able to taste it in our pie?

Uh, oh! It takes control to stir the filling without slopping it out of the bowl. We know mistakes are opportunities to learn, so slow down the stirring!

Two beautiful pies, ready for whipped cream and eating!

Cooking at school also allows the children opportunities to taste foods they may not have tried before or foods that they may think they don't like. Most children are learning to take a taste to see if maybe now they will like it.

The pumpkin pie was a huge success!