Creamy roasted butternut squash filling on a flakey, buttery crust – top it off with a lightly salted & peppered sunny-side up egg and serve a cup of French Roast on the side. Good morning, Chignik Lake.

Pumpkin pie for breakfast – it’s either just after Thanksgiving or Christmas, or we’re nearing the end of another year in the bush. In fact, we’re almost having to pinch ourselves to get our heads around the fact that there are just four days till the end of Barbra’s school year. With a very early summer vacation in sight, we’ve been in the process of clearing out our freezer. Several months ago we roasted and freezer-packed  a couple of butternut squashes. When we rediscovered them last weekend, they were still in excellent condition thanks to our manual defrost freezer.

Having never perfected crusts, I got out of the pie baking business when I married Barbra, but she still uses my pumpkin pie filling recipe – an adaptation from Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook. She put a bush twist on the recipe this time, substituting Hoosier Hill Farm Premium Heavy Cream Powder for real heavy cream, which can be notoriously difficult to get out to the bush. The pie came out just fine.

And so this past week we’ve been starting our mornings right with one of our favorite breakfasts: Pumpkin Pie with a Fried Egg and a cup of joe. Our sparrows have begun returning, Cranes are starting to nest up on Black Lake, the bears are up and about and this morning I think I saw a salmon jump down at the bend. C’mon summer!

For our favorite pumpkin pie/squash pie recipe, see: A Cookbook for the Ages: Pumpkin and Pecan Pies from Craig Claiborne