Pumpkin Pie- Midwest Style

Talk about feeling silly.  I've been cruising around vegan blogs looking for an egg and dairy-free pumpkin pie recipe for a while now, reading about various concoctions of tofu, pumpkin, agar agar and agave nectar.  These concoctions get rave reviews from the vegans, but I always have a sneaking suspicion that their taste buds may have been a bit altered in the veganization process.  After the Nori-Mu Mate debacle, I'm really hesitant to mix tofu with anything...and take the vegan food reviews with a healthy skepticism.

So this month, in the center of my Martha Stewart Living (thanks Beth), was a spread by Katie Brown ( the Queen of "I can't cook and I'm sponsored by Kraft so I throw random processed foods together and call it baking").  I usually look at her recipes like you look at a car wreck...it's so awful, but you keep looking anyway.

The original recipe was "Turtle Pumpkin Pie", a horrible caramelly-sweet nutty idea, but the basics were not too bad, and easily adaptable to our needs.  I am a huge pumpkin pie fan and only like the traditional version, so this recipe was not my style.  But it's quick, doesn't take up the oven in case I want to bake a real pumpkin pie for myself too, and the kids liked it a lot.  Athough dairy and egg-free, this is not vegan...honey in the graham crackers...that's bee's work you know.

The humbling part was mentioning this recipe to a co-worker.  The conversation went like this:

Me (all bouncy excited): I found the greatest idea for a dairy and egg-free pumpkin pie! You take pumpkin and mix it with pudding mix, milk, whipped cream and spices or something like that...

Dr. Babywise (all calm and knowing): Oh, yeah, of course.  You mean the recipe with a can of pumpkin, 2 boxes of pudding, milk and a carton of Cool-Whip.  I've done that before.

"The Recipe"!?  Like everyone knows about this except for me?  Obviously, I need to talk to the Midwest Casserole Moms a bit more, and that Katie Brown...I'll keep looking at her recipes in horror with one eye open.

Dairy and Egg-Free No Bake Pumpkin Pie!

1 graham cracker pie crust (make your own, or buy one, I used Honey Maid)

1 cup soymilk

1 cup canned pumpkin

2 packages (3.4oz) Vanilla Instant Pudding

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. nutmeg

8 ounces of Rich's Whip liquid, whipped up thick (or other dairy-free whipped topping)

1.) Beat soymilk, pudding mixes, pumpkin and spices together with a whisk until well blended.
2.) Fold in 1 1/2 cups of whipped topping.
3.) Pour into crust, decorate with remaining whipped topping and refrigerate for an hour.

Perfect Dairy-free Pumpkin Pie Recipe, Egg-Free Pumpkin Pie Recipe, Vegan Pumpkin Pie Recipe, No-bake Pumpkin Pie Recipe.