The story behind this pie is simply necessity. The office had a power outage and my frozen bag of blueberries for breakfast fell victim. It would have been such a pity to throw away a bagful of mushy but otherwise perfectly fine berries. But what the heck requires three cups of fruit? Mike and I ran through a list of options on the drive home.
Sure- whatever gets the job done and tastes yummy in the process. In a pinch, I grabbed a recipe from the Food Network and was pleasantly surprised.
This is the first time that I have made a pie crust with shortening instead of butter (my go-to is Smitten Kitchen's version). While I wasn't jumping up and down at the big difference, the husband complimented the crust for its flaky texture. Point there! The filling is thickened with a little corn starch rather than tapioca pearls which I appreciated as one less thing to grab at the grocery store. My favorite aspect, however, was the hit of lemon juice in the filling- it really makes this pie pop! The citrus really brings out the flavor. I can't wait to make this again with fresh berries in the spring.
For the recipe, check out Cheri Garnett's Country Blueberry Pie!
