Tantalizing Thursday

June is the month for strawberries in my New Jersey location. We wait all spring for conditions to be ideal for strawberries to ripen in June and from the first week through the last we stream to the “U-Pick” farms to get our fill of the freshest, plumpest, and sweetest berries on the planet! Mostly my family eats the fruit straight from the box we filled, but I do try to get enough to make one pie (at least) per summer. Strawberry Rhubarb Pie is the best pie I have ever eaten bar none. With the perfect mix of ingredients, succulent fruit, and flaky crust, Strawberry Rhubarb Pie needs to be made, eaten, and relished at least once a summer. Here is the simplest recipe with the most wonderful of outcome! Enjoy!!


Strawberry Rhubarb Pie
Recipe from the Sussex County Strawberry Farm, Andover, New Jersey
http://www.sussexcountystrawberryfarm.com/


Ingredients:

1-1/3 cups sugar
1/3 cup flour
2 cups sliced strawberries
2 cups rhubarb (cut into ½ inch pieces)
2 Tbsp. Butter or margarine
9” pie pastry (for 2 crust pie)


Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Stir together sugar and flour. Stir together strawberries and rhubarb. Put half strawberry/rhubarb mixture into pastry-lined pie dish. Sprinkle with half of sugar mixture. Repeat with remaining mixtures. Dot with butter. Cover with top crust, cutting a few slits for baking. Seal and flute. Sprinkle with sugar. Cover edge with a 2-3 inch strip of aluminum foil to prevent excessive browning (remove foil for last 15 minutes of baking). Bake 40-50 minutes – until top crust is brown or juices bubble out. Serve with vanilla ice cream.


My family always picks our berries at the Sussex Country Strawberry Farm in Andover, New Jersey. They consistently yield the best strawberries annually and the event has become a family tradition. Before we discovered the Sussex County Strawberry Farm, I used to only buy my strawberries at the grocery store year round, now I cannot wait until June to eat the most juicy, tasty, and scrumptious berries hand-picked off the vine! Find your local “U-Pick” farm and delight in the season’s best offering!

I typically use less than the recommended amount of sugar if my berries are freshly picked and super sweet. I also add a bit more than the 2 cups of berries suggested. I use butter to make it taste superb, but definitely take help from Pillsbury by using their boxed, 2 prepared crusts which bake up perfectly and are a sublime complement to this filling. Definitely serve warm with the best vanilla ice cream as an accompaniment to this pie. Save your calories elsewhere, with this dish simply enjoy June’s best offerings!

This is a fantastic dessert for a Father’s Day gathering, but be sure to make at least two!!