Blueberry Lemon Pie. Oh my.

Three finals, two presentations, one paper down, two finals to go.  I can do this, right?  I've been telling myself that for weeks and finally I'm starting to believe it's true.  To ensure that my brain wasn't going to burn up from overuse, I decided I needed to take a little break from studying to make some yummy food and enjoy it with a few friends.

A couple of nights ago I made a trip down the street to the cutest store in the North End, Shake the Tree, for their monthly party.  Once a month they stay open late while serving drinks, some sort of food, and usually have work by a local designer or jewelery maker.  They have all sorts of wonderful gifts, home decor, clothes, and so on.  Every time I drop in I end up flipping through their cookbooks.  Which all look so delicious.  So I finally decided it was time to buy one.  I asked the owner what her favorite was, and she suggested Flour.  It is from the owner of a local bakery in Boston, called not surprisingly, Flour.  I had actually visited the bakery for the first time about a week ago and it was delicious.  I decided it was fate and bought it.

As soon as I got home I started flipping through it trying to narrow down the choices of what to make.  And for possibly the first time in my life I was able to make a quick decision about food.  Blueberry lemon pie.  Warm pie with blueberries, lemon and ice cream?  Mhmm.  To go along with the pie, we also decided to grill burgers (On our newly bought grill that is sitting outside on our tiny window box.  I'm sure our landlord would be thrilled.  Oops.) as well as Kaston's moms famous potato salad.  Burgers, potato salad, and pie?  I felt like I was back home.

Let's get back to that pie.  I followed the recipe exactly, which is incredibly surprising, but she was very precise so I thought it might be a good idea to do what she said.  I think she knows her stuff.  Here we go.

Ingredients:

For crust- Just a little note on the crust.  I followed her recipe and it was a bit time consuming, so feel free to use whatever crust recipe you would like!
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup cold unsalted butter cut into pieces
2 egg yolks
3 tablespoons cold milk

For pie-
1 crust
6 cups blueberries
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
zest of 1-2 lemons
1 egg, lightly beaten

Let's start with that crust.

Gather those ingredients.

Cut butter into about 12 pieces.

Combine flour, sugar, salt and butter in mixer.  Mix for about 1-2 minutes or until lumps of butter the size of pecans are visible throughout.

Combine eggs and milk in a small bowl.

Whisk.

Add egg mixture to flour mixture.

This is what should happen.

This is what she called "Going down the mountain".  Gather the dough in a ball, starting at the top slide your palm down and out.  Do this until most of the butter chunks are smeared into the dough.  Do this once or twice.

Flatten out, wrap in plastic wrap, refrigerate for a couple of hours.

After a few hours, grab about 2/3 of the dough and set the rest aside.

Roll dough into a roundish shape.  About 1/8 inch thick.  One of these days I will be able to actually roll dough into a beautiful circle...One of these days.

Now for blind baking.  Place dough in pie pan, leaving about 1/4 inch hanging over.  Line with wax paper and fill with beans or rice.  This keeps the dough from puffing up while baking.  Place in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes. 

While the crust is baking grab 2 cups of the blueberries, the cornstarch, sugar, and salt.

Combine in a medium saucepan over medium heat.

Leave over heat until it looks like this.

Remove from heat and add lemon zest and the rest of the blueberries.

Remove crust from oven, get rid of beans and wax paper.

Put filling in pie crust.

Mmmmmm.

Roll out remainder of dough and cover the pie.  Cut a small X in the center and brush generously with the beaten egg.

Place on baking sheet and bake at 350 degrees for about an hour or until the top is golden brown.

Look at that goo.

If you can resist, let it sit for a while to let blueberries set up.

There he is.  The grill master.  Grilling out of our window.  Champion.

Mmmm burgers.

Nick patiently waiting to be fed.

Ooh la la.

Warm. Blueberry. Lemon. Pie. Ice cream.

Digging in.

The end.