Pumpkin two bite pies

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I've been making more of my own food for racing and riding this year with good success. I've have fewer stomach issues and been able to stay on top of hydration better without over loading my system. A lot of the recipes I've been using - my rice bars, the peach/cottage cheese pies and my granola - have come from The Feed Zone Cookbook  and Feed Zone Portables. I got the first book on a whim last year because a lot of my friend were talking about it. Well, after making many of the recipes (and some have become staples) I got the second book right away when it came out. And that's where the pies are... There are four different crust options and both savory and sweet fillings. I've made all of the crusts, but usually stuck with a cottage cheese, peach, coconut filling, similar to the strawberry filling in the book. But then on our Thanksgiving day ride, I was daydreaming about pumpkin and pumpkin pie. Time to get creative!

I made the original crust from Feed Zone Portables, but using gluten free flour, corn flour and quinoa flours. Kept all proportions the same for flour, butter and everything else. The biggest different is I don't have a standard food processor so for things like pies and scones, I have to use a pastry fork to cut in the butter. It takes a little more time and elbow grease to get a nice, smooth consistency, but still works. Old fashioned but effective!
Cutting in the butter for the crust
After chilling the crust for a while, it was time to make the filling and prepare the pies. I pre-cooked the pumpkin pie filling so it was a little thicker and had better body. Use whatever pumpkin pie recipe you have for Thanksgiving, but reduce the sugar a little - you're not going to want the portable pumpkin pies that sweet. In order to cook the filling, I spooned it into a ceramic baking dish, set the dish in a pan filled with water to keep the edges of the filling from burning, then proceeded as usual for baking a pumpkin pie.

For the portable filling, I mixed my pumpkin pie with cottage cheese in about a 2-1 ratio. Have to admit, I wasn't measuring anything! If it looked like a decent blend, had good texture and tasted good, I was happy. I also added a splash of maple syrup to the pumpkin-cottage cheese blend since the cottage cheese reduced the sweetness of the pumpkin. I did this instead of leaving the full amount of sugar in the pie filling so I could manipulate the flavors for the portable pies a little better.

Then it was time to roll out the dough into small circles. I know the instructions from Feed Zone Portables is to devide the dough into 12 portions before chilling, but I didn't have room for a tray in the fridge. I did have room for my small ball of dough though - so for crust prep, I just cut off a chunk of dough and rolled it out. Worked pretty good for me. I rolled the dough about 1/4" thick, then placed a spoonful of filling in the center. Folded over to make turnovers, just like directed - It's my favorite of all the pie styles.

Pumpkin Pie filling, cottage cheese, the dough and one crust getting rolled out.
 Placed the finished turnovers onto my baking sheet and into the oven. Found they needed to cook a little longer with the pumpkin filling - it was 25 minutes at 350* to get a nice golden brown on the top of the pies. I also discovered that the pumpkin pie filling expanded a little during the cooking process - I'd trimmed the edges and had a few that looked a little like oysters opening up! So next time, I'll leave a wider edge to the crust - maybe even try something fancy to keep them together a little better.

Portable Pies, ready for the oven
End result? Very yummy. The cottage cheese added some balance and body to the pumpkin pie filling and the crust turned out perfectly. Nice and flaky, but solid enough to hold together during a ride. I put half in the fridge and half in the freezer. That's the final test - how well the pies taste coming out of the freezer. It's a lot of work at one time, but the ability to have good food for riding is worth it. And if I can make several batches and freeze them, I'm set for a few months!
Oh yeah, pumpkin pie for my next ride!

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