Food & Fun Recipes

Pumpkin Pie in a Bag

Ingredients (For 25 students)

• one gallon zip freezer bag
• 2 ⅔ cup cold milk
• two packages (four serving size) instant vanilla pudding mix
• one can (15 ounces) solid-pack pure pumpkin
• one teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ½ teaspoon ground ginger
• graham cracker crumbs
• 25 small cups
• scissors
• one can whipped topping
• 25 spoons

Ingredients (For 2 students)

• quart-size zip freezer bags
• ⅛ cup milk
• 2 T canned pumpkin
• dash cinnamon
• dash ginger
• 1 T pudding mix*
• tart-size premade graham cracker crusts or ginger snaps

* The mix should have the consistency of pudding. If it is too runny, add pudding mix. If it is too thick, add milk.

Instruction

1. Combine the milk and instant pudding in the bag.
2. Remove the air from the bag and seal it.
3. Squeeze and knead with hands until the mixture is blended—about one minute.
4. Add the pumpkin, cinnamon and ginger.
5. Remove the air, and seal the bag.
6. Squeeze and knead with hands until blended—about two minutes.
7. Place ½ tablespoon of graham cracker crumbs in the bottom of the small cups.
8. Cut the corner of the gallon freezer bag, and squeeze pie filling into the cups.
9. Garnish the cups with whipped topping.
10. Provide spoons. Enjoy.

For individual servings follow directions as above and squeeze mixture into tart-size premade graham cracker crusts, or place a ginger snap at the bottom of small cups to serve as crust.

Pumpkin Trivia

• Pumpkins originated in Central America.
• Native Americans called pumpkins "isqoutm," their word for "squash."
• The pumpkin is one of only a few foods we still eat today that is native to North America.
• Pumpkins were a main part of the daily diet for the Pilgrims and other early New England settlers. Dried pumpkin shells served as bowls for storing grains and seeds. Native Americans flattened strips of pumpkins, dried them and made mats from them. Pumpkin seeds were food and medicine for Native Americans.
• Colonists made the first pumpkin pies by slicing off pumpkin tops, removing the seeds and filling the insides with milk, spices and honey, then baking it all in hot ashes. Pumpkins were also used in the crust.
• The pumpkin is a vegetable, related to squash. It is high in fiber and contains potassium and Vitamin A.
• Some kinds of pumpkins are grown for cattle to eat.
• The largest pumpkin pie ever made was over five feet in diameter and weighed over 350 pounds. It used 80 pounds of cooked pumpkin, 36 pounds of sugar, 12 dozen eggs and took six hours to bake.
• The tradition of carving pumpkins at Halloween started with the Irish, but the original jack-o-lanterns were made from turnips. When the Irish immigrated to the U.S., they found pumpkins a plenty, and they were much easier to carve.
• Pumpkins range in size from less than a pound to over 1,000 pounds. The town of Roffstown, New Hampshire, holds an annual pumpkin regatta each October, in which giant pumpkins are hollowed out to make room for a single passenger, then fitted with trolling motors and paraded on the Piscataquog River.