Ain't Found A Good Title Blog

ALDI – Belmont
Pumpkin Pie

Well, originally, I wasn’t going to review this.  It’s such a mundane thing.  But then I thought, what are future generations going to do when they face the same problem we did this year –  What to bring to the family Thanksgiving dinner?  We were assigned the pies.

To paraphrase James Bond, “Christmas comes but once a year.”  Really Thanksgiving comes but once a year in this case.  But Thanksgiving didn’t fit the quote.  Pumpkin pie, being a seasonal item, leads me to suspect this product won’t be in the ALDI freezer section for another 11 months.  That being said, this review is all but useless for this year.  But for generations to come, here is the answer to the yearly dilemma.

First, to digress, I don’t know why pumpkin pie is so seasonal.  It’s always good.  In fact as Will Rogers almost said,  I never met a pumpkin pie I didn’t like – even the ones I’ve burnt.  Historically, fall is when pumpkins are harvested.  So I understand how this seasonality started.  People had a lot of pumpkins rotting in the field and had to find a use for them.  But with modern (even not so modern) canning and freezing, there’s not really a good reason we don’t enjoy pumpkin pie more often.

It’s not like there are tons of other uses for pumpkin, so the supply of pumpkin isn’t limited because it’s so much in demand for other products.  There has to be literally gobs of pumpkin available to last for the entire year.  What are the other uses for pumpkin?  Jack-o’-lanterns?  But they just use the pumpkin shell.  Pumpkin seeds?  They’re really good, but baseball players chew sunflower seeds.  So until that tradition changes (not likely), there’s no big demand from baseball.  Even if baseball players changed their habits, it’s still only the seed part of the pumpkin, not the part used for the pie.  Pumpkin chunkin’?  That’s some serious competition for pies, and also uses the very heart of the pumpkin (along with every other part).  In fact when we think about it, pumpkin chunkin’ is a totally green sport.  All the pumpkin is used.  There’s absolutely no waste.  And it’s self-sustaining.  All those seeds scattered around the fields just grow up next year to be more pumpkins – and more chunkin’.  But boys do grow up (not really, but just go along with the premise for the moment), so there’s dwindling competition from chunkin’ versus pies.  Finally, punkin’ seats.  But these appear to predate the internet.  Therefore they don’t officially exist.  In conclusion, except for possibly pumpkin beer demand, there should be no shortage of pumpkin for pies to enjoy throughout the year.

Getting back to the pie review, our assigned task was to bring three specific pies to Thanksgiving dinner.  One of the assigned pies was a pumpkin pie.  Serendipitously, on a regular trip to ALDI, I came across this particular pie in the freezer section.  Need a pumpkin pie, buy a pumpkin pie.  That makes a lot of sense to me.  Besides every oven should be turned on at least once a year.  It had been almost a year to the day that our oven was last turned on (to season my cast iron skillets – but still counts).  Baking this pie was the perfect opportunity to give the oven a yearly whirl and rest it for another year.  And the price was right.

Unfortunately, life is not so simple.  A slight bit of domestic intranquility, led to the (wrong) conclusion that this pie wouldn’t be good enough to take to dinner.  So we eventually got one of Mrs. Evan’s pumpkin pies from Bob’s place at about 3 times the price.  It was straight from Mrs. Evan’s freezer into Bob’s oven and into a very nice box waiting for us when we drove to the restaurant the day prior to Thanksgiving to pick it up.  Mrs. Evan’s pie was pretty good.  In fact it was a little better than this pie, so no complaints there.  But it wasn’t like we were going to Rome to spend Thanksgiving with The Pope.  It was just the relatives?  Regardless, the dinner was great so all’s well that ends well.

But, that left me with a frozen pumpkin pie in the freezer and the oven over due for a turn on.  Last night remedied that problem.  After about 70 minutes baking and 2 hours cooling, the verdict is, it’s a pumpkin pie.  The record is unbroken.  I’ve still never met a pumpkin pie I didn’t like.  Maybe this one is a little sweeter than some.  And maybe it could’ve used a little more pumpkin spice.  But, as the record proves, pumpkin pies are good.  This is no exception to the record.

Next year, if you’re assigned to bring pumpkin pie to the Thanksgiving dinner; stop by Mrs. Evan’s, see if she’ll give you an empty box, buy two of these pies, bake them both, put one in the box, take it to dinner, save the second for your family, use the left over cash for your kid’s presents and don’t turn the oven on for another year.

Price: around $3 ( I lost the receipt)  Calories:  310 per 1/8 of pie

ALDI – Belmont
Pumpkin Pie

Tags: aldi, calories, cooking, food, pie, price, pumpkin, review

This entry was posted on 12/23/2014 at 08:01 and is filed under ALDI, food, Recipes, food, cooking and related items. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.