Spitball Army

There is absolutely no telling where it came from, but, for the last several weeks, I have had a ravenous craving for blueberry pie.

On my few trips to eat out, it hasn’t been on the menu, though I guess I could have called around to ask restaurants in the area if they were serving fresh blueberry pie.  It seems somewhat odd to have a meal based around the dessert course, though I am sure it’s been done before.

My other option was to make it myself.  The blueberries at the grocery stores (not the frozen ones…blecch!) are gargantuan, and taste of water.  So I’ve been watching out at the local growers’ markets each week for the appearance of the berries of blue.  This weekend, at Pepper Place, they appeared.  I bought three pints: two for a pie, and one for my morning oatmeal.

Back when I lived in Cambridge, I had a cooking/bartending job that gave me access to a huge kitchen within which I tried many new and experimental recipes (for example, a savory avocado/sausage loaf that was to die for).  A few years later, I moved to a neighborhood where several friends resided, and we had regular dinner gatherings for which we would each bring a meal component.  During these times, I fastidiously collected recipe cards.  One of my favorite dishes was a blueberry glacé pie that my friend Sue had learned from her mother.  I copied down the recipe.  That is what I turned to this morning in my preparations for a slice of fresh blueberry pie.

The recipe:

My notes on the recipe:
– This was a mercifully EASY dish to make!
– While this recipe calls for just a “pinch” of cinnamon, I opted to go with the equivalent of about four pinches.  Though this wasn’t necessarily a mistake, it did not allow the cinnamon flavor in the pie to be truly subtle, as may be ideal.  In the future, I will go for one, possibly two pinches of cinnamon.  That would allow the flavor of the berries to come forward a bit more cleanly.
– I saw no need to place the berry mixture in a blender, as the cooking process rendered the berries mostly liquid anyway.  The only advantage to using the blender would be to completely liquefy the mixture, resulting in a gelatin-like substance.  My tastes – a bit more rustic, I guess – enjoyed the few bits of berry “skin” in the pie.  Using the blender would have eliminated those.
– I combined the whole berries with the mixture when the mixture was tepid, not completely cool.  That worked just fine.
– Whipped cream was terrific atop a slice of this pie.  A very slight shaving of lemon zest might be a nice addition, as well.
– This pie holds together very well – no runniness or ozziness on the plate.  Be sure not to skimp on the corn starch, which is the magic ingredient that holds it all together.

The delicious, finished product:

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

If you lived close to me, you could be eating this right now: I distributed the pie to my neighbors, in an attempt to share the wealth and not end up with a massive blueberry pie belly!

And, for my next culinary trick…
[audio:Roches___The_Troubles_(excerpt).mp3]
from “The Troubles,” by The Roches