Fresh Strawberry Pie

I have to admit that I'm not a berry person. I like working with them and putting them in baking, and I'll eat the baking with the berries, but I don't like to just sit and pick at a bowl of berries. I am also not a huge fan of strawberries. Unless they're dipped in a lot of dark chocolate, I can think of a few dozen things I'd rather eat. But, for some weird reason, this dessert caught my eye when I started going through the June 2008 issue of Gourmet. It seemed different to me, and it was a simpler, summery recipe that looked easy to make. I recently had the opportunity to make it for a family dinner, and it also worked out that I could get 2lbs of strawberries for $5 at my local overpriced grocery store.

Recipe here.

Regarding ice baths...I rarely have enough ice hanging around to use as an ice bath, so what I did was cool the filling down to cold in a bath of ice water, then I set the pie in the freezer as opposed to the fridge. This worked like a charm.

It was a pretty impressive pie, in the end, and my family gobbled it up. It was so refreshing, and a nice change from the traditional baked berry pies. This had a few steps to it, but over all, it was an easy recipe, and the crust was fantastic. I felt it needed more than the 5oz of cookies because it was thin and I wasn't able to make the crust go to the top of the pie plate, but this is a minor adjustment for the next time I make this. I can also see this being easily adaptable to use other berries, like blueberries or huckleberries. Definitely a recipe I'll be keeping around!