What a great pie! I used sweet potatos instead of pumpkin and everyone loved it. Thank you.

I do have one question. After you use the beans to bake the crust can they be used as normal or should they be discarded? Just being thrifty I guess...

My son said that this crust was my best yet! So I will be using this for all my pies from now on-as Bill wrote, just wish it didn't take so long to make but it IS worth it. My son suggested getting the Crisco in the sticks and freezing it partially even before cutting it into little pieced so that part will go more quickly. I was trying to measure the messy stuff out of the can and then get it into little pieces to freeze :) The only problem was that I used the crust for an apple pie and it got a little brown before it was done because of the pre-baking. Could I have baked the apple pie without that step? Or pre-bake and just cover the edges with foil?

Par baking is something that can be done to many different degrees, like par cooking, it really depends how wet the filling that will go in is. It takes some experimentation, a lot of people do not par bake their shell and have good results, and yes you can also cover the edges with foil if they get too much colour.