Blueberry Pie

My mom makes the best pies, hands down. She's always asked to bring her pies to holiday dinners with the extended family I plan to share a few of her recipes with you here over the next few weeks. I made a few changes to this recipe but her original recipe is written at the end of the post.




First, your favorite pie crust recipe. I use the Joy of Cooking's double crust pastry recipe and opt for half butter and half shortening. Use this recipe but substitute half the butter for shortening. It turns out perfectly flaky every time.




Split dough in half, wrap in plastic and refrigerate until filling is complete. Chilled dough is much easier to work with than a warm sticky mass.



Picking berries is a time consuming and tedious job in my opinion. I'm not the biggest fan of picking but I do love eating and cooking with berries so I muscle through. I found that when making a blueberry pie, if I use half of the amount of blueberries it calls for and substitute the rest with apple, I can stretch my blueberry supply even further. The apple flavor doesn't come out much at all so blueberry is still the prominent flavor.



First mix the flour, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, lemon peel and sugar (again, tundra berries are super tart so I add extra sugar, maybe an extra 1/4 cup or so).



Then stir dry ingredients together with the berries and apple. I usually sprinkle on some tapioca over the top of the whole mess at this point. I don't like a pie that runs all over your plate so I add extra thickening agents.



Roll dough out on a piece of floured wax paper. We save and reuse the bags from cereal boxes, I never buy waxed paper. Being resourceful with what you already have is the best way to save money up here.



Rolling on to a piece of wax paper also makes it very easy to transfer to the pie plate.




It peels right off. I have never been successful at pulling up a crust directly from the counter top.




Add a pretty crust design.



Cut vents in the top and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar.



Pretty, inside and out.


My Mom's Blueberry Pie

Ingredients:

4 c. blueberries
1 c. sugar
3 T. flour
1 T. cornstarch
2 T. tapioca
1/2 tsp. lemon peel
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
dash of salt

Directions:

Combine all of the ingredient. Place in bottom crust. Sprinkle with 1 tsp. lemon juice and 1 T. butter. Place second crust over the top and seal the edges. Cut slits in top crust for steam to escape.

~AnnMarie