Lemon Blueberry Pie

I've never been a big pie fan, it's too blah-crusty tasting or something, but when a reader mentioned her blueberry pie in a comment earlier this week, I had just gotten more farmers market blueberries…  This gave me a craving and an idea:  I wanted to try making a lemon blueberry pie — don't you just love those two flavors together?!  I'm excited that it came out so tasty, and Kent loved it too.  I couldn't get him to say it was even better than his Mom's apple pie though, that one is his all-time favorite. 🙂

Sally Fallon says this in Nourishing Traditions about pie crust: “This is the only recipe in which we compromise somewhat on our principles.” I think she says this due to the white flour that her recipe calls for.  So even though this is homemade, obviously, that doesn't make this lemon blueberry pie perfectly sparkly due to the sugar, it's still pretty much a “compromise”, once-in-a-while treat.  That works for us, we're not purists around here!

Lemon Blueberry Pie

Ingredients:

Crust:

• 2 cups flour (unbleached white flour or Einkorn flour)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 12 Tablespoons cold butter, pastured butter is best
• 1/4 cup organic cane sugar or organic palm sugar (this one has more nutrients, but a bit darker flavor)
• 1 egg yolk
• 4 Tablespoons cold water (have you read this post:  Why we ditched reverse osmosis drinking water and what we got instead!)

Filling:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup unbleached white flour again, or Einkorn flour
• Finely graded lemon peel from 1 whole lemon, (I like a lot of lemon flavor!)
• A dash of salt
• About 4 1/2 cup fresh organic blueberries and toss to coat. (One recipe I looked at said you could also use a 20 ounce bag of frozen, but then increase flour to 1/3 cup)
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 2 teaspoons cold butter

Instructions:

• Add to your food processor to make a double crust: 2 cup flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 12 Tablespoons butter, 1/4 cup sugar. Blend 'til mixed well, add 1 egg yolk and blend more. Add cold water and blend until it forms a ball. If it feels dry, add a bit more water. If it feels too wet, add a bit more flour.
• Split dough in half and roll each out into a big circle onto a lightly floured countertop. Form one into the bottom of a pie plate, trim the sides, prick the bottom with a fork, and bake for 15 minutes at 300*. Cool.
• Make the filling — stir these ingredients together in a big bowl: 1 cup sugar, 1/4 cup flour, lemon peel, and a dash of salt. Add about blueberries and toss to coat.
• Once the bottom crust cools a little, spoon in the blueberry mixture.
• Squeeze about 1 teaspoon lemon juice over the top.
• Cut up about 2 teaspoons butter into little pieces and drop them around the top.
• Cover the pie with the other pie crust, pinch edges, trim sides, and make fun designs, whatever you'd like! (Mine never ends up real pretty and I end up patching pieces to cover holes…I never said I was a Martha!)  UPDATE:  My girlfriend gave me a great tip:  Instead of trying to make the pie edges all pretty, just tuck them under and bake normally – everyone loves extra pieces of crust!  It's so much prettier this way, for me anyway!
• Cover loosely with foil, bake at 375* for 20 minutes. Uncover and bake another 20-25 minutes or until crust is golden brown.
• Let cool before cutting, if you can…

Now just make it and let me know what you think — have you ever made lemon blueberry pie?

• Creamed soup alternatives
• Mom tips: healthy snack ideas

photo by thebittenword.com and another