Pumpkin Pie with a Graham Cracker Crust

Pumpkin pie is such a traditional fall treat. It makes the apartment smell so wonderful. For my pumpkin pies, I like to use a graham cracker crust. Also, instead of the traditional evaporated milk, I like to use sweetened condensed milk and then omit any other sugar from the recipe. I think the sweetened condensed milk makes the pie fluffier. Even though I'm not adding any sugar to the pie itself, I like to add some brown sugar to the top of the pie, kind of like a streusal topping. A nice addition to the streusal topping could be walnuts. You'll see in the picture to the left that I did not spread the topping all over the pie, but that is definitely something you could do. Also, one last thing, I never measure any of the spices I add; I think that's a bit boring. I also usually only use cinnamon and nutmeg in my pies; I just don't like the taste of ginger. And if you have fine sea salt, use that.

Graham Cracker Crust:

1.5 cups finely ground graham crackers
6 tbs butter- melted
1/3 cup sugar

Use a rolling pin to mash the graham crackers. Put them in a bowl and add the sugar. Finally add the butter to this mixture and blend with spoon until all the dry ingredients are coated with butter.
Press into a 9" pie plate.

Bake this at 375 degrees for 7 minutes. 

Pie Filling:

(Recipe courtesy of sparkpeople.com username jkaplan86, but with my substitutions)

15 oz pumpkin (not pie filling)
14 oz sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 t cinnamon
1/2 t ginger
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t salt

Preheat oven to 425.
Mix all ingredients together. Place in the already baked crust.
Cover the crust with a thin strip of foil so it does not burn.
Bake at this temperature for 15 minutes.
Reduce heat to 350 and bake for another 35-40 minutes or until a knife comes out clean.
After about 30 minutes in the oven, remove the foil and add the streusal topping. Before doing this, however, stick a knife in the middle, it should look fairly clean. You don't want to take the foil off and put the topping on too early.

Enjoy with whipped cream /or vanilla ice cream!