AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE EXCEPTIONAL AGE-DEFYING LIFESTYLE
You might be wondering why an aviation and sportswear & Performance outfitter company has a recipe on pumpkin pie. When I was in my early teens years, I worked on and in my grandfather’s farm and bakery where we baked all types of bread and pies, The ACE KOSHER DELI & BAKERY. I still bake for THE special customer that purchase our sportswear; especially around the Holidays.
By: Charles W. Boatright (President)
THE ACE Guide to: Healthy Pumpkin Pie & Crust Recipe- A Holiday Favorite, a Traditional Nutritious Dessert, That’s Healthy for Your Waistline
Below is a STEP-by-STEP Recipe and prep for making great pie crust, pumpkin pie filling, and baking your perfect Pumpkin Pie that your guest will think you bought from a professional bakery; but YOU DID THIS.
A Little Background on my Grandparents
I worked on my grandparents’ dairy farm that are Jewish immigrants that barely escaped the Holocaust from France from the Dijon region. They moved to Missouri where they operated a winery, dairy farm, and bakery. They settle in the Missouri Ozarks near Nixa, Missouri, (You might be familiar with Nixa; because in the last Jason Bourne Movie The Bourne Ultimatum, Pamela Landry disclose to Jason, Matt Damon, that was his birthplace). My grandfather turned one of their barns into a bakery where I worked starting my day at 4 a.m. and finishing it at 8 p.m. preparing the dough for the next day before hitting the books for homework.
By grandparents became great fans of the Arkansas Razorbacks, that I found ironic, that my Jewish grandparents were be fans of a team that has a hog as their mascot. Below was a photograph of them traveling to a Razorback Football game in 1938. It is difficult to think of your grandparents as ever being young, in their mid-30’s.
I spent just as much of my time growing up in my grandfather’s bakery as I did on the football or baseball field or golf course, especially in the early morning hours 6 days per week. My mornings started early at 4:00 a.m. prepping for the breads, pies, and bagels that we baked. We were the morning stop for our customers that we served, especially for the coffee. A lot of world problems were be solved during those mornings gatherings among people.
I still bake homemade Whole Wheat Rolls that I rollout each morning for my customers, especially around the holidays:
During the Holidays, we still prepared those Holiday favorites, like our whole wheat rolls and cinnamon rolls. But our customer’s favorite was the traditional Pumpkin Pie for several reasons. The main reason that I liked Pumpkin Pie was the nutritional health factor. The Weight Factor that I use to evaluate the nutrition factor of foods has Pumpkin Pie at MR Score of 2.37. A healthy, nutritious Weight Factor is anything below 3.25. I use only 46% of the sugar that the Libby’s label calls for because of my health conscious concerns.
I’m very Health conscious trying to keep 90% of my food selection at or below a Metabolic Rate (MR) Score of 3.25 that has lead to me dropping 52-LBS. over 8.50 Inches, and Years off the appearance of my skin. In the photograph below, I’m 64 years old, by following my DIET THE QATSPY MELIORA HEALTH & FITNESS Program. I use the weight factor to prepare my meals at home.
Part of my THE QATSPY MELIORA HEALTH & FITNESS Program consist of foods that are a great source of Probiotics, Protein, and Fiber. I lost 52- Lbs and over 9.00- inches in my waistline by following my MELIORA HEALTH & FITNESS Program.
The term MELIORA is a Latin term that means pursuit of bettering one’s self.
My main objective was to just drop my weight and inches in preparation to start my sports apparel and performance business at age 57. But as I was dropping both my weight and inches, I drooped something far more impressive, I dropped decades off the age of my skin.
The MELIORA HEALTH & FITNESS Program had an Age-Defying component due to my diet high in protein, fiber, and probiotic; but my fitness program. When you work your muscles with resistance training, your muscles release a natural growth hormone that your body can use as collagen for healthier looking skin and healthier joints and cognitive function.
While I dropped 6- inches between November 28th, 2014 to February 27th, 2015, I dropped about 20- years off the age of my skin. Dropping 2- decades off my skin was totally unexpected. But it provided me an opportunity to not only start our sportswear and performance business, but also do modeling where I model our Safari Cockpit Collection that we carry in our online store.
Below, is one of the photos we did for our Christmas promotional that I did just this past Saturday, November 18th, 2023 at age 66. This is featuring our Safari Cockpit Chino Khaki pants and our tailored fitted Button-down Oxford logo shirt.
I dropped years off the appearance of my skin at age 66, because of my diet and fitness system that is based on a diet high in probiotic, Protein, Fiber, the WHAT I eat and WHEN I eat and strength program. The major part of my diet is knowing WHEN NOT to eat, past 6 p.m. Not eating past 6 p.m. helps your skin to slow and in some cases even reverse the aging process. Eating past 6 p.m. interferes with the body’s natural ability to rejuvenate and repair process at night.
Bonus my MACS FITNESS Workout covering all 15- elements where I demonstrate the proper procedure to perform each element.
The link below will link you to my MELIORA HEALTH & FITNESS Program that also includes my MACS Fitness Program, below is the front cover to my book:
If you want a healthy dessert for your Thanksgiving and Holidays meal, the Pumpkin Pie (MR score of 2.47) is a great choice for your dessert and in my case for my breakfast with coffee. Please follow my Recipe and prep procedure:
Recipe for Your Pumpkin Pie starting with the Flaky Crust, please try to avoid purchasing store bought crust, believe me yours will be better if you following these following steps, below:
Please do yourself a favor, that is essential, buy and use heavy duty pie pans like William Sonoma carries. Please don’t purchase crust from the store, it is too thin.
Tips on a Great Crust for Pies
I bake and prepare 95% of all meals at home to ensure the health and nutrition factor that I’m having. I can control ALL the ingredients that go into my recipes.
I prefer to prep and bake my own pie shells in commercial grade pie pans that I still have from the bakery where I worked as a teen. A thin pie pans can cause the crust to be distorted, burn, and stick to the pan. I want to control every aspects of the baking process, because presentation is still a main Health Index (HI) factor in your meals. If it looks good, it tastes even better.
Preparing the Filling
If you use Libby’s Pumpkin Pie Puree follow these simple steps
This is NOT Libby’s Pumpkin Pie Mixture.
NOTE: Any recipe that calls for eggs (either the yoke and white, or yoke only), use a whisk to beat the eggs to entrain, or incorporate, air into the eggs. This is a key to baking; don’t just crack eggs directly into your recipe.
Follow the directions on the Libby’s Puree Pumpkin, except use either a half-a-cup to a quarter cup of sugar, instead of the three-quarters cup of sugar, based on your preference. This reduces the sugar content by 33 to 60 percent. I try to eliminate as much sugar from my diet and recipes as possible and still provide a great product.
To mix the contents, combine the dry ingredients FIRST, followed by adding the mixture of pumpkin puree, eggs, and evaporated milk in a mixing bowl and use a mixer to thoroughly mix the ingredients. Again, your trying to entrain air into the Pumpkin filling. This way you get a fluffy pie filling.
These are little things that make a huge difference.
Direction for a 9-inch Flaky Pie Shell Crust
2 cups of sifted Flour
1/2 teaspoon of Salt
1/2 teaspoon sugar
3/4 cup of Shortening (for convenience, use stick shortening)
6 Tablespoons cold water (place ice cubes in a glass of water). I even take ice cubes and place them in my cup of water that I’m using to spoon-out water, 1 Tablespoon at a time-into-the above ingredients. I add 1- Tablespoon at-a-time until the dough forms a ball in the bowl.
NOTE: Always mix dry ingredients FIRST before adding liquid mixture
Sift flour and add salt. Measure flour after sifting. Cut in shortening with a rubber spatula into flour/salt mixture, if you feel safer cut the mixture off while cutting in shortening in a mixing bowl and place electric mixer on medium mixing speed.
Gradually add cold water to flour/salt/shortening mixture while mixture is running, one Tablespoon at a time, until dough starts forming a nice firm ball.
NOTE: NEVER add more flour to mixture after cold water is added. This will cause the crust to become tough.
Lay either parchment or butcher paper out on top of thin, plywood board on your counter top. Lightly dust the paper with flour using a tea strainer, shaking the strainer with flour against the palm of hand over paper. Just a dusting is all you want. Transfer dough ball onto lightly dusted paper. Roll out dough with a rolling pin or dowel, rotating the board to roll out the dough into a round shape pie shell, as shown above in the photograph. Roll out to approximately 1/8th inch thickness. You can use clips to hold boards and paper in place, while rolling out the dough.
Spray a heavy-duty deep pie pan with PAM® and flip the pie pan over in the center of your pie shell dough. Make sure you have at least 2-inches of dough extending beyond your pie pan, as shown below.
Place one hand on the bottom of pie pan and particularly slide the board off counter toward you to allow you to be able to grab and flip pie pan back up. Peel off paper slowly to make sure the dough doesn’t stick to paper. Lift the outside edge of hanging pie shell up, while you press pie shell into the pan where it won’t hang on the flange of pie pan, this will prevent tears or thinning the crust. You can take your fingers and form a scalloped design on the top edge of flange of pie pan. You can see from the photograph below where I used my finger tips to form the pie crust into the pie pan.
Take a fork and poke a small few vent holes in the bottom of pie shell, about six-to eight. Pour the Pumpkin filling into pie shell and fill just below the top edge of pie shell.
Pouring the Libby’s Pumpkin Filling In
The reason that I mix my filling prior to making my crust, I don’t want my pie shell to set while I’m mixing the filling.
Place pie pan onto a pizza or cookie sheet (I prefer to use a pizza pan) to help the heat distribute evenly around the entire pie pan and not concentrate at the bottom of my pie pan. Bake for the specified time and temperature, as noted on the Libby’s recipe. Take an ice pick and test the center of the pie to make sure it comes out clean right 5-minutes below the time expires on your timer. Let pie cool and serve.
If you purchase equipment, cook, or bake ware buy commercial grade because you’ll see the best results. I have three commercial fryers, Hobart convection ovens, and 30- Quart Hobart mixer in my kitchen.
This pumpkin pie like sweet potatoes can actually be a healthy part of your holiday meals if you limit the amount of sugar that you use. I usually cut the amount of sugar the recipe calls for by half. Please enjoy the Holidays with your family and friends, that’s what these meals all are about.
I also operate a Sport Apparel Business where we carry the A-2 and G-1 Leather Flight Jackets;
Don’t forget my books that I have wrote on health, homeschooling, and fitness.
01-THE QATSPY® MELIORA Health & Fitness Program Turbocharged DIET w/ Age-Defying Results!