A Final Blueberry Moment

I've never picked blueberries four times in a single year.  Until this year.

I admit it.  It was recreation.  A chance to get out of the house and be in nature.  Be outside, where (at least for now) it is safer.  I can't say "in silence" because it wasn't silent.  The murmur of pickers near me, ordinarily not an issue, signaled that maybe it was time to pull up my mask.  But only one time was it that crowded.

As someone now semi-retired, spouse and I were able to get there right when the U-Pick farm opened, which helped a lot.

So we picked early berries, late early berries, mid season berries and late berries.  The late berries, we were warned when we arrived at the check-in stand, were either sweet and soft (they would start breaking down right away) due to the heat, or in better shape but tart.

After a short discussion, we decided these would be more for baking, and we chose "sweet and soft". 

Each year, this farm hands out a blueberry recipe brochure to its customers, and I chose one of their recipes, one I haven't made for many years:  Let's call it Double Blueberry Pie. I used the farm's recipe with some small modifications, which you may or may not want to make. I saw so many similar recipes online I decided I could put this online -

1 pie crust (Mine was an experiment, and maybe I'll blog about it one day.  Let's just say I used a homemade graham cracker crust.)  This is a no bake pie, unless you bake your own crust, but it does require a little cooking.  Nice not baking on a hot day.  Our summer has been hotter than normal.

Please keep in mind I try to bake on the "light side" so you may want to go back to the original - for that reason I made some notes.

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.)

1/2 cup sugar (original recipe calls for 3/4 cup.  I didn't think it needed that much)

3 tbsp cornstarch

A pinch of salt

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

1 tsp dried lemon peel (not in original)

1/4 cup cold water

1 tsp light butter-like spread (because that's what I had.  Original calls for 1 tbsp butter).

Method

Combine sugar, cornstarch, water, salt until well blended.  Add 2 cups blueberries. Cook over medium heat until the blueberry mixture thickens. 

Then, add the spread, lime juice and lemon peel.  Let cool.

 

When cooled, place the reserved 2 cups of blueberries into the pie crust.  

Pour the thickened cooked mixture over the uncooked blueberries. Cool some more and serve at room temperature or cold.  Hopefully your pie will look better than this, which is reason #479 why I don't publish a cooking blog. (Yes, the crust was a fail, and I will blog about it one of these days.)

And if I did have a cooking blog, it would probably be titled "Because It's What I Had" or something similar, like "I Never Got the Hang of Pie Crust".

That, my dear readers, is the last you will hear from me about blueberries this year (probably).  Can you tell I love them?

We froze several bags worth for the winter, remembering how frozen fruits and veggies vanished during March, April and May.

So....are you a good pie baker?  Or not?