Recipe: Fresh Blueberry and Strawberry Pie (aka It’s Still 4th of July Pie)

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Pie-A-Day  #4

If you live in Los Angeles, the quiet that descends on the city during holidays is almost sacred.  The city changes from its normal crazed bustle to the bucolic, still, sunlit paradise it was once upon a time.  I want to eke every second out of that holiday stillness so on Sunday I found myself making this pie at four pm before the return to Monday’s buzz of normalcy.  I worked on the 4th so I’m celebrating today with the red, white and blue of a Fresh Strawberry/Blueberry Pie with Whipped Cream. I like to call this my “It’s still 4th of July Pie.”

Keep reading for my recipe…

“It’s still 4th of July” Patriotic Pie

Prepared crust of your choice.  I used a Nilla Wafer Crust

3/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon salt
a few swipes of finely grated lemon zest  (a 1/3 lemon’s worth)
2/3 cup water

Enough hulled Strawberries to fill and make a nice mound in a deep dish pie pan (approximately 4 baskets)
3 cups fresh blueberries, divided use
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons butter (not margarine)
2 teaspoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
10-inch pie crust, blind baked and cooled

In a medium saucepan, combine sugar, cornstarch, salt and lemon zest. Blend in water.  Fill a 2 cup measuring cup with strawberries and blueberries,  Add them to the mixture. Bring it all to a boil, stirring and smashing the berries deliberately (use a potato masher if you like). The blueberries are easier to smash then the strawberries.  As they cook smash the strawberries more. Boil the mixture stirring constantly, until mixture is very thick, about a minute or so. Remove the glop/matrix from heat and stir in butter and lemon juice. Cool.

If you’re in a hurry you can scrape the glop into a small bowl.  Fill a larger bowl with ice water and set the smaller bowl in the cold water and stir until the mixture is cooled.

Meanwhile prepare the strawberries.  Reserve some beauties for decorating the top of the pie.  If you have a few giant berries cut them in half lengthwise

When the glop has cooled fold in the remaining strawberries and blueberries (except for those you’ve reserved for the top of the pie), stirring to coat them well. Pour them into cooled baked pie shell. Arrange remaining berries over the top. Cover with plastic wrap and chill the pie at least 2 hours, or overnight if needed.

Serve the pie with whipped cream.