Birthday Pie

As some of you may know, Riley's birthday was yesterday.  He requested pumpkin pie.  I thought I would describe the challenges it takes here to make one.  Of course, you can always go to the Costco and buy one.  Costco here has the largest amount of western food you can find in Korea (except for the area in Seoul near the army base).  However, it is halfway across town, I don't have a card, and its always packed with people.  So, I would need to make a pumpkin pie from scratch.
Pumpkins here are little and green.  Large orange ones are not common and very expensive.  They are the cooking type of pumpkin too, I have yet to see a carving pumpkin here.  Canned pumpkin is also elusive, and everything in cans here is much more expensive than the US (ex. heinz tomato sauce is $3).  So, I use the little green pumpkins.
Nutmeg, cloves, and all spice are either really expensive or just not here.  In America I usually make the recipe on the canned pumpkin label.  It involves using evaporated milk.  You can find evaporated milk here if you go to really big grocery stores or an international store.  Its also expensive, so I used a different recipe.
The rest of the ingredients are pretty easy to get (milk, eggs, cinnamon).  The recipe I used makes it fluffy with beaten egg whites, which is always interesting.
The last challenge was the crust.  You can't buy ready made crust here.  I've always avoided making it in the past because its annoying, but I found a recipe using oil that isn't too bad.
So, making a pumpkin pie in Korea is challenging and takes a long time, but the end is worth it.  Plus, I can now make a pumpkin pie from scratch!