Two-Berry Pie

As the CSA has been the inspiration of many things we cooked this summer, so was it the motivation with this pie. We had received yet another bunch of blueberries, and had worn thin on adding them to cereal. There was still plenty of the blueberry sorbet left over. So what better could we do than make a blueberry pie?

Turns out you make a two-berry pie with a graham cracker crust. We tweaked the pie recipe only slightly by substituting a cup of cranberries for the last half cup of blueberries and used the pie crust recipe as is. I'm quoting the recipes here because the source is hard to read, but again this is not our recipe.

Graham Cracker Crust (from PickYourOwn.org)

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups graham cracker (or digestives) crumbs
• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/8 cup water

Directions

1. Crush the graham cracker or digestives. For ease you may prefer to use a food processor.

2. Melt the butter.
3. Combine the crumbs, melted butter, and water and stir to combine.
4. Press into the pie plate, spreading to a 1/8 inch thickness with no gaps. If the crumbs have trouble sticking, add a tablespoon of water.

"World's Best Blueberry Pie" (from PickYourOwn.org)

Ingredients

• 3 to 4 cups blueberries
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 7 tablespoons corn starch
• 3 tablespoons water
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• 9 inch pie crust (see Graham cracker pie crust (PickYourOwn.org) for the option we used)
• (optional, recommended) Crumb topping: 1/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, 1/4 cup butter

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375° and prepare a 9 inch pie crust.
2. Wash the blueberries, removing any stems or mushy blueberries.
3. Mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, combining sugar, corn starch, and spices.
4. Mix in the wet ingredients, adding water and lemon juice to the bowl.
5. Add the berries to the crust in a big pile.

6. Pour the mixture from the bowl over the berries; don't worry about mixing.
7. Mix the ingredients for the topping in a bowl, and spread or sprinkle over the pie.

8. Cook in the oven for an hour, until the top is golden brown and the pie is bubbling.

9. Let the pie cool to a warm temperature and serve with ice cream.

He said

I was quite pleased with the ease of putting this recipe together. The graham crackers were just what I wanted, and the added tartness from the cranberries made my day. However this pie tasted a little starchy to me, especially when served chilled the second day. I would highly recommend reheating it to serve left over slices, and suspect there are better tasting alternatives out there, though they may well be more work than the taste difference might deserve.

If your try works like ours, you might find the pie bubbling long before the top turns a golden brown. We addressed this by turning on the broiler for a few minutes at the end.

She said

Really we hadn't worn thin on adding blueberries to granola; that was just Mike's excuse to explain why he wanted to make a pie. I don't think he needed the excuse.

I thought this pie was very tasty. It's hard to go wrong with fresh blueberries, and the cranberries added a slight tartness. Together, they were the right combination of not too sweet, and not too tart.