Still Double Plus Good Blueberries

It's blueberry picking time in the Southern Tier of New York.  We've been picking twice this year, two shorter visits because I did something to my back about 10 days ago and it's still cranky.  But despite the discomfort, I love being out in the open air.

The blueberries. 

More bushes.

The fields.

This has not been the smoothest season for the local blueberry farmers, though, because of a late frost.  The U-Pick operation we go to had planted 100 plus young plants this spring when they thought it was safe.  It wasn't.  Over half of them died.  They also lost all of their earliest berries and didn't start picking until a week after the normal start time.

We've been coming to this one operation for years now

I love having the fresh berries so much, and we can (and do) always freeze the excess for the winter.

One of my readers asked yesterday what I do with the berries.  We eat a lot of blueberry pie.  We make other recipes, too - here's a list from last year with links.  Since I'm a Weight Watchers lifetime member, I can't eat too many sweets.

What follows is one of my favorite ways of eating blueberries - blueberry pie, using a slightly changed recipe provided by the U Pick farmer.  It makes the best blueberry pie I've ever had, and I blogged about it last year.  Last year, I made some changes, so here, once again, is my Double Plus Good Blueberry Pie.

There seem to be a lot of similar recipes online (in fact I found a recipe identical to what the farm provided in an online church cookbook) so I feel OK in posting this farm's recipe for all to enjoy.

Crust

1 refrigerated piecrust (because I'm lazy), baked in a 9 inch glass pie pan. 

No pictures this year, because my spouse made the pie while I worked one day last week.

Filling:

4 cups fresh blueberries (divide into 2 parts, 2 cups each) (apparently you can use frozen but I haven't done it myself, so I don't know if it will work with frozen.  It might work with the berries you cook (you'll see why as you read on).

2/3 cup sugar.  This all depends on the sweetness of the berries.  I've found early berries run a little sweeter than later ones.

2 1/2 tbsp potato starch or 3 tbsp cornstarch.  My spouse, the family cook, prefers potato starch, which we buy at Passover time.

A pinch of salt

1 tbsp lime juice (because that's what we have - the original called for lemon juice)

1/4 cup cold water

1 tbsp butter (we used whipped butter).  

Method

Combine sugar, cornstarch or potato starch, water, salt until well blended.  Add 2 cups blueberries. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until the blueberry mixture thickens. If you use potato starch, please keep in mind that it will thicken very quickly.  You need to pay careful attention.

Then, add the butter and lemon or lime juice.  Let cool.

When cooled, place the reserved 2 cups of blueberries into the pie crust.  Then, top with the cooked mixture. 

Then, try to resist eating the entire pie at one serving.

Double Plus Good.