Thanksgiving

Turkey Extraterrestre

Since we had to work on Thursday (kind of) and Friday, the gringos from Colegio Americano had an international Thanksgiving feast on Friday evening. Tom from England baked Yorkshire pudding, Willa from Holland brought Cabbage salad, Margaux brought hard boiled quail eggs, and the rest of us tried to make our favorite family recipes using Ecuadoran ingredients.

I'm thankful for all the wonderful friends I have made in Ecuador!

Margaux's Deviled Eggs and Hard Boiled Quail Eggs

Mike and I made pumpkin pie. Not so simple to do in Ecuador! Canned pumpkin is not available here. After asking around, we were told that we could find pieces of zapallo in the Mi Comiseriato grocery store. Zapallo is a large green pumpkin, which they sell in chunks. I cooked the pumpkin in the microwave, and Mike processed it in the blender…we don’t have a food processor. We couldn’t find any ground cloves, so Mike also ground the cloves in the blender and then we had to sift out the bigger pieces. They sell milk in boxes here – not very good – so we used powdered milk. The flour is different here and I was warned not to try to make pie crust from it, plus I don’t have a rolling pin, so I made a pie crust out of zoologia cookies (that’s what they call animal crackers).  I always laugh when I see the name, but I guess zoo cookies is no worse than animal crackers.

The pies didn’t look very pretty, but they tasted good. Everyone always likes the Berglund (Mom’s) pumpkin pie recipe.



A Chunk of Zapallo



Pumpkin Custard Pie



16 oz (1 ½ cups) pumpkin

¾ cup sugar

1-1   ¼ tsp cinnamon (adjust spices to taste)

¼– ½ tsp cloves

¼– ½ tsp nutmeg

½ - 1 tsp ginger

½ tsp salt

6 oz (¾ cup) evaporated milk

1 ¼ cups milk

3 eggs, slightly beaten

Mix ingredients in a bowl, pour into a 9-inch unbaked pie crust.

Bake at 450ᵒF (232ᵒ c)for 10 minutes, and then reduce heat to 325ᵒF (163ᵒ c)and bake for 45 minutes.