We cooked a lot of food for Thanksgiving this year, but one of the dishes we’re most proud of is one we invented ourselves as a twist on a typical holiday dessert: pumpkin ice cream pie.

We used:

• Vanilla wafers
• Butter
• 2 pints of pumpkin ice cream
• Chocolate sauce

First things first, we had to make a crust for the pie, which is where the vanilla wafers came in.

We crushed up about 2/3 of a bag of wafers into fine crumbs.

Then we mixed the crumbs with 1/3 of a cup of melted butter.

Once the wafers and the butter were mushed together, we spread the mixture right into a pie plate.

We made sure to cover the bottom and sides of the plate, then we stuck it in the freezer for a day so the crust would set.

The next day, we took both pints of pumpkin ice cream, cut them out of their containers, and put them in a bowl for around five minutes to defrost a little bit.

Once the ice cream had softened up, we used a spatula to stir it around so it became spreadable.  Then we scooped it out of the bowl and spread it into the pie crust evenly.

We drizzled some chocolate sauce on top, then stuck the pie in the freezer for another day to set.

This was definitely a hit for Thanksgiving (as we write this, Miriam’s mother is eating the last piece straight out of the pie plate).  The pumpkin ice cream was a little difficult to find – we ended up having to go to Whole Foods and paid $11 for two pints – but the pie itself was very easy to make.  Because everyone loves ice cream, this turned out to be a tasty, nontraditional dessert for our Thanksgiving celebration.