fun with leftovers

I've had leftover pumpkin pie filling sitting in my fridge since the day of the pumpkin gingerbread ice cream sandwiches. The time had come to use it or freeze it. It was time then for one of my favourite culinary activities. Scouring the kitchen for leftovers and other assorted ingredients, throwing them together and possibly eating the results.

Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn't.

The pumpkin pie filling was my obvious starting point. There was some molasses left over from the gingerbread cookie part of the aforementioned recipe. And some pecans. Not left over from anything. Just waiting.



At this point, I had one thought: pumpkin-molasses tarts. And why not pumpkin-molasses pie? Simple. Pie crust is not my forte. But shortbread dough is. And shortbread dough makes delicious little tart shells. So I made a quick batch of the world's easiest shortbread dough.


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World's Easiest Shortbread

1 cup butter
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
2 cups flour

Mix together.


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One the dough had been shaped into the world's easiest little tart shells, I turned my attention to the filling. I have no real recipe to include here because I just kept adding ingredients until it tasted good to me. But I think it went something like this:

1 cup pumpkin pie filling
1/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup evaporated milk
cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice to taste

I filled the shells, popped a toasted pecan on each one, and put them into a 350F oven. Then I waited about 20 minutes. Then I ate one. Or two.

Would I make these again? Yes.

Would I do anything differently? Oh, yes.

Starting with pumpkin puree instead of canned pie filling. And more molasses. But that just might be me. I'm a bit of a molasses fanatic. And I might chop the pecans and add them to the filling. But despite the significant room for improvement, these were fun, tasty, and absolutely delicious with ice cream.

But then, I have yet to meet a dessert that isn't delicious with ice cream.