Po' Bastard's Great Pumpkin

'Tis the season of big round orange vegetables, my friends. Be thankful: they are plentiful, tasty, and most importantly, they are CHEAP!

Po' Bastard's friends often make her gifts of such vegetables-- in this last week alone, her MIL gave her two small pumpkins, presumably for carving not cooking, but what MIL doesn't know won't hurt her; and dear friend Sue Murph handed over a large, infant-with-hydrocephaly sized acorn squash... (dunno, exactly, if it's acorn squash, it might be a turban squash, which makes the previous comparison far more tasteless and therefore more relevant).

So, now that Po' Bastard is in her own country, enjoying the bounty of American autumn, she thought she might try making a pumpkin pie--from scratch. Ah! Delusions of grandeur! While the multi-step process of creating the pie filling was fairly easy: clean and deseed pumpkin, roast pumpkin, cool pumpkin, mash pumpkin, season pumpkin, mix filling; it was the complicated chore of making pastry that made Po' Bastard want to give herself a swirly in the toilet.

Anyone else out there ever try to make pie crust? Doesn't seem like it should be that hard, right? Little flour, little butter, pinch of salt, little cold water-- it should be good to go, yes? No and no! Po' Bastard's pastry crumbled, she had to add extra water, which is a big pastry no-no, and she had to add more flour, and roll it roll it roll it before she could even press it into the pan...whereupon it TORE.

But, because Po' Bastard was reluctant to toss away the fruits of her labour (keep in mind: Po' Bastard is also a Cheap Bastard), she stretched that pastry until it fit, unevenly, into the pan. When Po' Bastard put it into the oven, it was an unsightly looking pie; fit only for other Po' Bastard's sad lonely penniless eating. And, when Po' Bastard took it out of the oven, it was still unsightly.

Po' Bastard let it cool, and then cut herself a little slice while to eat while she watched an awful TV program about some rich family's plight to save their heroin-addicted daughter. It was then she realized why the Betty Crocker Cookbook re-print of the 1955 edition considered this to be a "key" recipe. It was so tasty, so sweet and spicy, so yummy-bitches, that Po' Bastard began to believe pastry, even that which turns out ugly-looking, is well worth the bloody struggle.

To Po' Bastards everywhere: go forth, make ugly and tasty pies. You will amaze yourself and, most importantly, your friends will be even more envious of your poverty than they were before.