PHOTO BY: Dennis.Vu Using Flickr- Creative Commons Agreement

If you know anything about me, you know me and food go way back.

I'm a lunch lady.

I was a restaurant chief-ie before that.

I'm going to continue to be a lunch lady for the foreseeable future. Go me. It's the economy, stupid. Or really, it's the stupid economy. I recently got my MBA. I'm kind of sort of looking for a new job, but in the interim I'm going to continue to be the best damn lunch lady there ever was.

So I give you PUMPKIN PIE for 176 people.
Double the recipe for a crowd.

Preheat the oven 325. It's convection-we're in an institutional kitchen, or 350 if you're at home and you just have a plain old regular oven. (If you're at home there will be a two pie recipe to follow.)

22 frozen pie shells
40 eggs
3-#10 cans pumpkin
8 cups granulated sugar
7 cups brown sugar
6 T. cinnamon
3 T. ginger
1.5 T. cloves
20-12 oz. cans evaporated milk

Lay out your pie shells on parchment lined bun pans.
In a giant ass mixer mix all the rest of everything together.

Pour the mixture into the pie pans, bake for about 40 minutes. It will take closer to an hour if you're at home with that conventional oven discussed above.

Serve with all the other Thanksgiving fixin's to the happy kids who come through your lunch line. You don't know what they might not be getting at home, this might be their only pie.

Aerosol cans of whip cream are optional, you decide if they can handle the responsibility.

For Home
2 pie shells
1 28 oz can pumpkin
8 eggs
1.5 c. sugar
1.25 c. brown sugar
1 T. cinnamon
.5 T. ginger
1 tsp. cloves
3-12 oz. cans evaporated milk

I’ve made this pie at my school for the last 10 years.

I’ll continue to make so long as they’ll have me. It makes me happier than about nearly anything else I do in November.

What work related Thanksgiving traditions do you all do?