Blueberry Pie from Guest Blogger Hallie Ephron

HALLIE EPHRON: Nothing says summer more than blueberry pie, and best of all when you make it with blueberries you've picked yourself.

We live near Boston and in a few weeks, our nearby aptly named Blue Hills are alive with blueberries. They're tiny wild ones, sweet and delicious, and you have to pick A LOT to make a pie. They are perfect in pancakes because they bury themselves in batter and don't get burned.

There used to be a field in Plymouth, near where our friend Pat Kennedy has as a summer cottage on a pond, that had row on row of all different heirloom varieties of blueberries. The pies made from those were fabulous. But a few years ago that field was let go wild and these days it's more a for harvesting poison ivy.

So we buy our blueberries at the supermarket. My favorite recipe for blueberry pie filling is Pat's, and it tastes great even with store-bought blueberries.

Patty Jo's recipe for blueberry pie filling... with embellishments from me who likes it tart (or taht, as we say in Boston):

- 5 cups of blueberries (wild if you can get them)
- 3 T flour
- 1/2 c sugar
- About 1 tsp lemon juice
- About 1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest (my addition)
- 1 1/2 T butter

Wash berries, remove stems, and mix with dry ingredients and lemon rind.
Sprinkle with lemon juice (to taste).
Place berries in half pre-baked bottom crust. (I pre-bake the bottom crust about 7-9 minutes to keep it from going mushy.)
Distribute dots of butter over berries.
Cover with top crust.
Brush on egg wash and cut air vents into top crust.
Crimp edges and bake 40 minutes at 400 degrees.

That photo is MY blueberry pie, and as gorgeous as it looks, it tasted better.



Hallie Ephron writes suspense novels that keep readers up nights. Her latest two, COME AND FIND ME and NEVER TELL A LIE, were both nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She blogs with the Jungle Red Writers.