Sweetness

Usually I have much more success with cooking actual meals rather than pastries or baked goods. But look at this beauty! I made it a few weeks ago, and I'm still so proud, even if I did use refrigerated pie crust. The hardest thing for me is to get things looking attractive enough to make you want to eat them.

[When I was in the sixth grade I did a science project that was supposed to test whether people preferred eating normal looking cookies over cookies dyed an icky green color. Brilliant! But, I think the "normal" cookies looked so unappetizing that I didn't really get a great result with the experiement.]

But I was very happy with this result. The only thing I regret is that I added a little extra lemon juice to the blueberries thinking it would give them an extra zip. Not a great idea. But I was still happy with the looks and will hold back my creative juices next time and stick with the recipe, which I have made with a tasty, though not as pretty, result several times. It is . . .

Polly's Perfect Blueberry Pie

Pie Filling: 1 quart fresh blueberries, washed
3 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup sugar
Dash ground cinnamon (which I always leave out)
Dash freshly grated nutmeg
1 teaspoon lemon juice
4 teaspoons butter

Berry pie filling: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

To the washed berries add cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon, and freshly grated nutmeg. Stir gently.

Place the berry mixture in the bottom crust and sprinkle lemon juice over it. Then with an ordinary teaspoon, place little 1/2 teaspoons soft butter evenly over the top of the berry filling.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Check it after 30 minutes. If crust is getting golden but pie filling is not quite congealed, tent the pie with aluminum foil to keep crust from getting too brown.

And you can use a refrigerated pie crust in whichever way you prefer. Yum!