I Heart Faces: Strawberry Pie

This week at I Heart Faces it is a story in pictures: dessert edition
I grew up in north-east Ohio and my family often took trips to West End Market in Cleveland.  We would go at the end of the day  for two reasons.  First, who wants to get up early on a Saturday. Second, toward the end of the day the merchants need to unload their product and will make a deal.  Sometimes, in the right season we found strawberries and my parents would buy a whole flat, and we would make strawberry pie!!

Pie Ingredients

6 cups fresh strawberries (about 1 1/2 quarts)

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons cornstarch

1/2 cup water

Crust Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup of graham cracker crumbs
1/3 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar


I usually make the crust first:
Melt butter in a 9 inch pie pan,

1 minute covered in the microwave works for me.

Next add graham crackers and sugar

use a fork to mix the crumbs and the butter

once the mixture is consistent, use the fork to press the mixture against the sides of the pan
place in oven at 375 for 5 or 6 minutes

remove and let cool

Strawberry filling
Cut strawberries into bide sized pieces and remove stems

the great part of this recipe is that you can (and should) use strawberries that are slightly 'over the hill.'

I tried making it with crisp strawberries once and it was just not the same.
I got these strawberries for $.99 a quart since they needed a little bit of cutting.
If a strawberry is slightly mushy, or if I cut anything out of it, I place it in the blender.

Once all of your strawberries are cut, blend the soft strawberries to get 1 cup of mush (2 if you make a double batch like I do.)

blend

next add the sugar and corn starch to a pan.

add strawberries and water slowly as you mix.

add to medium heat on the stove and mix, mix, mix

While you are doing this, you can add the strawberries to the cooled crusts.

Mix continuously until the mixture boils, then mix while it boils for 1 minute
Remove sauce from heat and let it cool.
Once the mixture is reasonable cool, pour over the pie crust and strawberries

Refrigerate for a few hours
Enjoy!