Strawberry Pie

As you may have heard, this is strawberry week in these here parts. And by these here parts I mean our house, which contained 10 pounds of strawberries as of Saturday afternoon. Yes, you read that right. Ten whole pounds!

Needless to say, after eating strawberries for a snack every day, putting them on my cereal, stirring them in my oatmeal, tossing them in our salads at dinner, and making fruit smoothies with them, we've made a considerable dent in the strawberries.

Making (Not So) Conservative Grandmom's famous, delicious, oh-so-lovely strawberry pie helped too. And that's what I'm going to share with you today.

Only first I have a confession. I botched it. Big time. Instead of eating a beautiful strawberry pie, fresh from the fridge, set up to perfection, we ate strawberry soup with crust after I made the pie Sunday.

It still tasted good, to be sure. But it wasn't really pie.

There's no use crying over runny pie though. So I'm sharing the recipe with you here because, despite the fact I may be fired from strawberry pie making, it's a darn good recipe. And I think you should try it. Then, when you succeed where I failed, share a picture of your masterpiece with me. Or, better yet, share a slice with me. That would really make me happy.

Here we go ...


Cook 1 cup water and 1 cup strawberries until soft.


Whirr the strawberries and water in a blender.


Failure one. Make sure you hold down the lid. I mean really hold down the lid. I sort of held down the lid and this was the result.

Clean up mess.

Add a cup of sugar and 2+ tablespoons corn starch and stir until thick.


(I know what you're saying now. Well, silly, you probably didn't add enough corn starch and that's why you had strawberry soup. But the thing is, I know I used the tablespoon instead of the teaspoon. And I added 2+++ tablespoons because I noticed it wasn't thickening. Is it possible to buy bad corn starch? Can I get away with blaming it on that?)

Let the strawberry filling chill.

Bake your pie shell. (Yes, I used a store-bought shell rather than making one from scratch. Perhaps the runny pie was punishment from the baking gods?)

Spread a little of the strawberry filling on the baked shell. Take blurry photos.


Then fill the whole darn shell with fresh berries. Come on now, don't skimp on them. The more berries, the better. (Officially, you're supposed to use a quart. But when you have 10 pounds of strawberries on hand, you just load 'er up.)

Spoon the remaining sauce over the berries and pat down. Watch in horror as the sauce runs everywhere and makes a big mess of your shell. OK, don't do that please. That's just what happened in my kitchen.


Refrigerate until you're brave enough to serve it. Then top with whipped cream and watch people ooh and aah. (Or shriek in horror, if you succeed as well as I did.)

(And no, I am not going to share photos of the pie after I served it. You can picture it. Remember, it's strawberry soup with crust.)

Don't be discouraged by my failure. Go make this pie—and do it right for my sake! Pie failures are so sad and only a beautifully made strawberry pie will get me through this trying time ...