Calabaza Pie

One of my holiday specialties when living in the U.S. was sweet potato pie.

Occasionally, I would make pumpkin pie instead - the basic ingredients to either pie is essentially the same, you just substitute sweet potato for pumpkin or vice versa.

Over the years, I had even begun using a third substitute. Butternut squash.

There were a few obstacles in my way when I wanted to make the same pies here in Sibulan. My attempts at growing butternut squash were unsuccessful. The sweet potatoes grown here aren't like the sweet potatoes grown in Georgia or Alabama, and I don't particularly like the taste and texture. It seemed to me that a good substitute would be the squash grown here, generically referred to as calabaza.

There was one problem which I thought might be insurmountable; the crust. In the U.S., there was really no need to learn how to make a proper pie crust. A perfectly good, frozen pie crust was always available. If I was going to bake this pie, I'd have to make my own crust. Fortunately, I found a pie crust recipe on the Crisco shortening can.

I went online and watched a couple of videos showing how it's done and I put together my own pie crust. As can be seen in the photos, the crust isn't the prettiest crust I've ever seen, but taste is the important thing, and this one tastes as good as any I've ever had.

As for the filling, I simply followed a recipe for a deep dish pumpkin pie and substituted the baked calabaza for the pumpkin.