Strawberry Pie

You guys. It's almost summer. The days are getting warmer and warmer, and my cravings for fresh strawberry pie has already hit! I found this recipe in my Grandma Irene's old recipe box. This recipe is from her sister Leona. I LOVE looking at old recipe cards. People spent so much more time making and writing down recipes years ago. When I see an old card, spotty and well-used, I want to make it as soon as I can. That was one of the reason's I wanted to start this blog. I grew up with homemade food often, either from my mom, or my Grandma. It's such a beautiful way of showing people how much you love them.

Look how used this recipe was. Plus my Grandma's writing is so pretty.

Yes. Don't even bother cutting this. Just grab a fork and dig in.

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What You'll Need:

- 1 9" baked pie shell

- 1 to 2 quarts strawberries, washed and dried, diced to your size preference 

GLAZE:

- 1 scant cup sugar

- 2 Tablespoons light corn syrup

- 3 Tablespoons cornstarch

- 1 cup water

- Strawberry Jello

Rinse your strawberries and set them to dry. *Also, I just realized I should dry my fruit on a cooling rack. That way the bottoms get mostly dried, compared to drying them on a cookie sheet where it seems the tops only get dry. Does anyone else do this? I feel like that was probably the best idea I've had in about a year. (Babies will do that to you)

I pre-baked a pretzel crust for this pie. What goes better than sweet strawberries and salty pretzels?? Maybe drenching the top of the pretzel crust with chocolate first... hmm.. definitely going to have to try that next! Anyway, if you do choose to do a pretzel crust, make sure your pretzels are more finely chopped than coarsely chopped. If they are too coarse, it will be harder to cut into slices. Which won't be an issue if you choose to eat this straight from the pan :)

After you've selected the kind of crust you want for your pie, baked it and let it cool (or taken it out of the package, no judgements here!), mix the sugar, corn syrup, cornstarch and water in a saucepan and cook it until the sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and add in the strawberry jello. On the original recipe card, it says to add in red food coloring but I didn't do that, so I'm not sure how the mixture would look with it. Mine was already pretty red so I kept it how it was! 

After you let it cool slightly, you can either put the strawberries in the pie and pour the glaze over them (as the recipe reads) or put them in a separate bowl and let them merry in the glaze for a few minutes. I did the latter. Look how delicious those glazed strawberries look!

Once I let those delicious pieces to merry with the glaze, I scooped them out of the bowl on into my pie shell. I had some remaining glaze left over, so I drizzled some over the top. I didn't want to put too much, in case it made the shell too moist. This probably won't be such an issue if you do a regular pie crust. Regular pie crusts are a bit more durable than pretzel ones. 

Now, this is important. LET IT CHILL. As easy as it would be to dig in right now, let it chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Top with some homemade whipped topping (heavy cream and sugar and a touch of vanilla) and booyah! I cut these strawberries on the larger side. You can choose how big you want your strawberry pieces. It's so good y'all! The sweet juicy strawberries with the crunch of the salty pretzel crust is insane. This will be a summer staple!