Blueberry Crumble Pie

So you might have seen where Dwight and I picked pound after pound of blueberries and thought to yourself, "What the heck is she going to do with all of those berries?" Aside from shoving handful after delicious handful directly into my pie hole... I made pie. Twice. And then I shoved slice after delicious slice of pie into my pie hole. Mmmm...



Up until last year, I'd never had blueberry pie. The thought of it made me want to vomit. Quite literally. See, when I was about 9 or 10 years old, I got sick on a day when I'd had pancakes with blueberry syrup that morning. I don't recall if I liked them when they went down, but they were NOT good coming back up. *Urp*



Since then, I'd been completely horrified by anything containing liquid-y blueberries or even eating fresh berries. I could eat blueberry muffins, or scones — something like that — but never, ever anything like pie, or even a blueberry-filled breakfast/granola bar or cookie. If the blueberries were not evenly distributed in individual form throughout a baked good, forget it. I was totally grossed out.



When Dwight insisted on making blueberry pie last year after our massive haul, I was sure that pie was going to be all his. But then he made me taste it. "Just TRY it. One bite." Fine. Oh my goodness. Much to my surprise, I thought it was amazing. And I didn't throw up. HOORAY! I became a blueberry pie convert and looked forward to making some with this year's berries.



The company I work for printed a cookbook for a local non-profit organization with recipes submitted by regular home cooks. Pretty much your typical church or school-type of community cookbook. I got to design the project, so I was able to see all of the recipes. A few caught my eye, but the one I just had to make was called "Blueberry Pudding Pie." Odd name, but it sounded good. This is a slight variation on that pie. What I love about this (aside from the fact that it's amazingly good) is that you don't use traditional pie crust. I'm a pie-crust-a-phobe. Many people are afraid of yeast (I have no such qualms) but ask me to make a pie crust and I'll break into a sweat. Which is why I buy these:

Yes, yes I do.

But this pie uses an oat-based loose crust that gets pressed into the bottom and sprinkled over the top. Let's check it out!






Blueberry Crumble Pie
(a.k.a Blueberry Pudding Pie, but I like my name better)

Ingredients
Crust:
3/4 cup butter (1-1/2 sticks), slightly softened
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 cups flour
1-1/2 cups old fashioned oats
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt

Sauce:
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 Tbsp cornstarch
1 tsp cinnamon
1 cup water

3-4 cups (or more) blueberries (*see notes)
1 tbsp lemon juice
zest of one lemon (or 1/2 tsp dried lemon peel**)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Sauce:
Whisk together sugar and cornstarch in a small saucepan. Make sure all of the cornstarch is completely in blended into the sugar. It'll avoid the problem of having clumpy cornstarch. Whisk in cinnamon, then whisk in water. Heat over medium heat stirring constantly until the sauce boils and thickens. Remove from heat and let cool while preparing the crust.

Crust:
Combine all crust ingredients in large mixing bowl using a pastry blender or process in food processor. I used a food process, but mine is small, so I did half at a time.

Grease 9" pie plate. Put 2 cups of mixture in bottom of dish. Press evenly along the bottom and up the sides of the dish.

Fill prepared dish with blueberries.
*NOTE: If you plan on packing the top crust like I did, you can get away with more berries. If you plan on having a loose top, i.e. just crumble, not pack it in place, only use enough berries to fill plate to the top edge, no higher. The sauce will bubble out ALL over the edges. Trust me.

Drizzle lemon juice and zest over top of berries. **If you don't have fresh zest you can use Penzey's dried lemon peel like I did. But fresh is best.

Pour sauce over top of berries, evenly coating them, scraping pan to get all of the saucy goodness.

Put remaining crust mixture on top of coated berries. You can press it down like you see in the photos above or keep loose.

Line baking sheet with foil, place pie dish on lined pan and bake for 50-60 minutes until filling is bubbling steadily. If the top is getting browned too quickly, cover loosely with foil.

Cool pie completely on wire rack before serving. Store covered in the refrigerator.



ENJOY!