Tag Archives: Strawberries

Blueberry Crumble Pie with Shortbread Crust

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I love blueberries….any way you fix them.

Growing up, my Grammy made a lot of blueberry muffins, blueberry cobblers, and, occasionally, a blueberry pie. For quite a few summers in a row, one of my Uncle Mo’s good friends provided a steady supply of fresh blueberries.  Grammy always froze them and we had (almost) fresh blueberry baked goods all year round.  I can still easily bring to mind the smell of freshly baked blueberry goodies, no matter how they were baked.

I like to take advantage of getting them fresh, while they’re in season during the summer.  Garen brought home a few boxes of blueberries from our new Kroger (which I’m currently loving) on Friday.  I had initially bought them to make muffins but didn’t get to it Saturday morning so I decided to bake a pie for us instead.

As a side note, I use a lot of frozen blueberries throughout the year for baked goods and they work well too but fresh blueberries are easier than thawing out frozen ones.  I’m letting my lazy-mama features shine brightly, right?!?

This Blueberry Crumble Pie with Shortbread Crust is an modified version of a recipe from Williams-Sonoma and you can find that recipe here.  Below is my adapted version, which includes a fantastic shortbread crust.  I honestly can’t remember exactly where the crust comes from- I think a combination of Pinterest and blog posts, plus a little bit of trial and error.  Wherever it came from, it’s the one I like to use- I’m too much of a perfectionist to even attempt making a regular homemade pie crust since they always turn out looking terrible for me and it drives me bananas! If you don’t like thick crusts, this one is not for you.

This pie crust is perfectly sized for my favorite pie dish. (I’ll have to share the recipe on another post- again, lazy-mom) One of these days I’m going to splurge and get the red pie dish. I started with the white version since I’m such a matchy-matchy person and white is easier to match with other dishes if you’re taking a pie somewhere.  I digress….

Here’s my version of a Blueberry Crumble Pie with Shortbread Crust with a few pictures:

Ingredients

  • Shortbread Crust
  • 1-1/2 C plus 4 Tbsp. All-purpose flour
  • 1 C firmly packed light brown sugar
  • 1/3 Cplus 1 Tbsp granulated sugar
  • 3 tsp. ground cinnamon
  • 16 tbsp (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
  • 5 cups blueberries

Directions

  • Preheat the oven to 375°F.
  • Make the shortbread crust and transfer to a 9-inch or 10-inch deep pie dish. Press into the pan.  If you have another recipe for a pie crust or a store-bought one, you can use it if its big enough as well.
  • In a large bowl, mix the 1-1/2 cup flour, 2/3 cup of the brown sugar, the 2/3 cup granulated sugar, and 2 tsp. of the cinnamon. Put the butter pieces on top and toss with a fork or your fingers to coat with the flour mixture. Using your fingertips (or, if you’re fancy, a pastry blender), work the ingredients together until the mixture forms large, coarse crumbs the size of large peas. Set the topping aside.
  • In another large bowl, combine the 5 cups of blueberries, 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon and 4 Tbsp of the flour. Gently stir to evenly coat the blueberries.
  • Sprinkle 1 tbsp flour and 1 tbsp granulated sugar over the bottom of the shortbread crust. Pour the filling onto the crust, spreading it evenly.
  • Sprinkle the topping evenly over the blueberry filling.  (You may have extra left, depending on whether you use a 9-inch or 10-inch pie dish.  This makes great topping for muffins as well and can be refrigerated for a few days.)
  • Bake the pie until the crust and topping is golden brown and the blueberry filling just begins to bubble, 45 to 55 minutes.
  • Serve at room temperature, warm, or cold. Garen and I both like it cold better.
  • It goes perfectly with ice cream, whipped cream, or cool whip.

Speaking of cool whip…

To add a little more sweetness to our night and go along with the pie theme, we played the Pie Face Showdown. I had forgotten how much fun this is for the kids.

The mess was worth the fun….plus, we did this right before bathtub. Easy as pie! (Pun intended).

I hope everyone’s Saturday (and Sunday) were as sweet as ours!

Disclaimer- I’m not being compensated for any of this content and I’ve not been given these products that I’ve linked too.

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Repurposing Food: Strawberry Cheesecake Trifle 

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This is another repurposing recipe. When I say recipe, I really mean more like guidelines for making something you need to get rid of look good. See another post for another similar trifle. 

I had some leftover pound cake in the freezer and wanted to fix something with it and incorporate cheesecake….because who doesn’t like cheesecake. I also had some frozen strawberries and cool whip in the freezer. And so this trifle was born. 

Ingredients 

  • Pound cake- about 6 cups cut into cubes*
  • Frozen sliced strawberries- 6 cups**
  • Cream cheese- 2 packages, 16 oz
  • Cool whip- oz package
  • Sugar- 2 cups, divided 

Instructions 

  • Mix strawberries with 1 cup of sugar. Microwave if they’re still frozen. 
  • Cream the cream cheese with 1 cup of sugar. 
  • Beat cool whip into cream cheese mixture. 
  • Cut up pound cake. 
  • Layer about half of the pieces of cake into the bottom of the trifle dish. 
  • Spoon about half of the strawberries on top of the cake. 
  • Spoon about half of the cream cheese mixture on top of the strawberries. 
  • Repeat layers. 
  • Optional- sprinkle the top with sprinkles. 

*You could use pretty much any kind of cake that you want. I will sometimes use angel food and it works well too for trifles. 

**You can use fresh strawberries if you have them and want to slice them. I was going for speed and what I had on hand. Also, it’s a really sweet dish, so if you don’t want that either eliminate or reduce the sugar for the strawberries. 

Trifles are always a hit with the kids…anything pudding-like is a crowd pleaser at our house. Add sprinkles and your golden. This was part of our Christmas menu, so red and green sprinkles did the trick. 

Again, the thing I like about trifles is that you can pretty much put anything in there that you want (or need to get rid of). Here’s a few idea variations as well. 

Repurposing Food: Berry Shortcake Parfait

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Last night I made strawberry shortcake for dessert.  And when I say I made strawberry shortcake, I mean Sam’s Club bakery made fresh pound cakes, which I sliced and served with fresh sliced strawberries, raspberries, and cool whip. Ok, I know it was lazy but it was still tasty and (best of all) easy. 

I digress. I had leftover berries and pound cake and we had a party to go to. Put it in a parfait dish with some vanilla pudding and you’ve got one of the world’s easiest desserts. I’ve made many other versions of this before. See below. 

 I called it Berry Shortcake Parfait but I just made that up.  It really should be called Dessert Leftover Surprise or Leftover Dessert Dump but neither of those sound appetizing and this really is just as tasty as it is easy. Plus, it’s a great way to use what you’ve got. 

Ingredients (for the version I made today):

  • 1 lb sliced strawberries 
  • 1/2 lb raspberries 
  • 2 small packages instant vanilla pudding – prepared takes 4 cups milk 
  • 1 pound cake cut into bite size pieces
  • Cool whip (I prefer real whipped cream but needed to use the cool whip)

Instructions:

Layer cake, pudding, berries. Repeat. Top with whipped topping. 

 Alternative Options:

  • Chocolate– Use brownies, chocolate pudding, chocolate chips. It will take more brownies and pudding since it is fruitless. Sprinkle with mini chocolate chips or chocolate shavings to add some flair. 
  • Lemon– Use lemon or regular pound cake, lemon pie filling, vanilla pudding mix. Top with some lemon shavings if you want to be fancy. 
  • Patriotic– Use above berry recipe but make one layer blueberries. Make a star out of blueberries on the top. 

Cilantro-Lime Fruit Salad

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This salad was supposed to be a mojito fruit salad but Kroger was out of mint. Soooo… I decided to try it with cilantro since I had some from the BBQ Pineapple Ham Sauté that I made.  

 I used fruit that was cut up and left over from my mother-in-law’s fabulous retirement party. 

Ingredients:

  • About 4 cups watermelon, cut into bite size pieces 
  • About 3 cups, sliced strawberries 
  • Lime juice, either 1/2 cup or 6 limes
  • 6 tbsp sugar (powdered sugar can be used for a thicker consistency)
  • 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped

  Instructions:  

Put the cut fruit and chopped cilantro in a large bowl. In a small bowl mix the lime juice and sugar until dissolved. Pour the mixture over the fruit and mix well. Put it in the refrigerator for at least 15 minutes to let the juices soak together. 

  It makes a big bowl. Probably 8 large servings worth. I might freeze some of it to make smoothies….or frozen adult beverages. 

Garen’s review:  “It’s good. Very refreshing. Less watermelon.” Did I mention he doesn’t like watermelon? We needed to use it though.