During our time with family in the USA, one of the things I was being very attentive about, was learning from my mother-in-law some of her “secrets“, “cooking tricks” and delicacies, mainly from her dear New England origins…
Among the experiences, which included a 2-day process for making spaghetti sauce with meatballs and italian spicy sausages, stuffed shells, meatball subs, for the scope of this blogpost, I’ll restrict myself to my favorite desert for the Fall season: (New England) squash pie!
I keep following my mother-in-law around, trying not to miss a second from her teachings…
A quick snapshot of one of her well-cared “secrets”:
Once the recipe folder is open, she grabs a hand-written recipe from her own mother, and the rest, is just history! To make things easier, here is a simplified scheme for this delicious pie:
Ingredients
1 can ONE-PIE Squash
1/2 cup Sugar
1/2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Ginger
1/2 tsp. Nutmeg
1/2 tsp. Cinnamon
2 Eggs (beaten)
1 1/2 cups Milk or 1 can 12 oz. Evaporated Milk
Directions
Mix sugar, salt, & spices. Blend well into squash. Beat 2 eggs separately, add milk, stir well & blend into squash mixture.
Pour into 9″ pie plate lined with crust. Prehead oven. Bake 20 minutes at 425 degrees F.
Then bake for additional 45 minutes at 375 degrees F.
It looks pretty simple, right? Not really! 😮 I’ve got a lot of respect for this great-grandma’s recipe, and maybe, one day, I’ll be able to bake it as well as my kids’ grandma does!
For now, just cheers from our current tropical setting, longing for the flavors and tastes we were able to enjoy back home!
3rdculturechildren 
So yummy.I like all kinds of pie.I’ll try it because I can buy these ingredients. 🙂
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and, it’s truly easy to do… one-pie (can) is the trick!!! 😮
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Traditional family secret recipes should be passed down from generations … it’s important to learn & record the recipes before it’s too late. Otherwise we’ll be eating McDonalds and KFC forever before you know it.
My great-grandaunties, grandmother, & aunties taught me how to make a few traditional Chinese delicacies … some which my Mom did not have an interest because they are very time consuming to make
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Totally agree, Cherise – and, between the Mexican, New Mexican, Italian-French cuisines, I think I’ll have a lot to learn from your old neighbors… 🙂 I love cooking…. It’s all about chemistry, aromas, textures… The issue is time, which I currently don’t have… But, I ‘ll… One day…already got the spaghetti sauce recipe down (upcoming post), tried in Mozambique, with local ingredients and it turned out well… Maybe not as fantastic as the one from “original Ms Miranda’s”, but our guests loved it…
still a lot to learn, a lot to try, experiment, and ruin… 🙂
thanks for sharing your thoughts… Miss DC… Already!
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