Strawberries and Homemade Strawberry Pie

It's that time again folks! One of the things I like most when the month of May rolls around is that strawberries are in season. The farmers around here grow some of the most beautiful, juicy. sweet and delicious strawberries you could ever care to purchase. These pictures will give you some idea of how gorgeous the berries are and, believe me, they taste as succulent and sweet as they appear. Not only are they tasty, but they are also very large berries.

Fresh Strawberries Grown by Our Local Farmers

Fresh Strawberries Grown by Our Local Farmers

Of course, these beautiful berries are great as is. A couple of these big pretties makes a healthy and wholesome snack.

Of course, you all know that strawberries are also delicious when used in other ways. They are great when added to a mixed green salad or joined with other fruits in a fruit salad.

Needless to say, there are many good recipes in cookbooks and on the Internet for making cakes and pastries, cookies and other things containing strawberries. My husband loves pies and a really good strawberry pie is one of his favorite desserts, Because he does, I knew exactly what I would do with some of the fresh strawberries he brought home to me. I would make yet another strawberry pie--my third for this season! 

Admittedly, I have been known to occasionally purchase a bag of congealed strawberry flavored filling that can found in the produce section of many grocery stores. You know the kind. You just cut the bag open and pour its contents over your strawberries in a prepared pie shell. That stuff is actually not half bad and is okay to use in a pinch.

There are recipes using a gelatin dessert mix such as Jello brand and I have also tried some of those recipes. I like gelatin desserts very much and strawberry pies with that ingredient can be quite good. The kid in me loves eating gelatin dessert! 

Still, it just seems a shame to add artificial flavors and yes, red food dye, to something as naturally gorgeous, wholesome and extraordinarily delicious as these fruits. I look for good recipes which will allow these gems to shine naturally.

I found  this recipe on http://allrecipes.com/ . I really enjoy browsing the All Recipes site and have found that I can usually find a variety of really good recipes for most any dish posted on it. This recipe calls for mashed strawberries to make the filling to pour over the strawberries. Half of the strawberries in the recipe, to be more specific. The mashed berries are cooked  with sugar, cornstarch and a little water to make the filling to be added to the raw strawberries. It makes a generous amount of this fabulous, jam-like filling to pour over the strawberries. If you like strawberry jam, you will love this filling.

I used the above recipe to make my pie. I used a deep dish 9 inch purchased frozen pie crust. I added more strawberries than the recipe called for when I arranged them in the baked crust, since the deep dish crust holds a lot more than a standard crust. Since the berries were very large, I sliced most of them in quarters before arranging them in the deep-dish pie crust and stacked a second layer of berries on top of the first layer. Each slice of this pie will be chock full of the scrumptuous fruit and filling.

This is the pie I made. I know it will taste good because I have used the recipe before! Yummy!

Homemade Strawberry Pie

Just look at the beautiful natural red of the strawberries and jammy delicious filling. No red food dye in this jewel colored creation!

Homemade Strawberry Pie

This recipe also calls for whipping cream and it includes instructions for making whipped cream topping. I fudged here, however and will be using whipped cream in a can. The kind you squirt through a nozzle.

The fresh strawberries I used for this pie were grown by Gurosiks Farms. Their farms are located in the neighboring  North Augusta, South Carolina area.  Gurosiks has some six fruit and vegetable stands in the area and one is located here in Aiken, South Carolina. The stand in Aiken is where my berries were purchased and they were freshly picked.

Photographs of the actual strawberry fields where the berries as well as other crops, including flowers, are grown can be seen by visiting their site here. 

Do you like strawberries? Are you a fan of strawberry pie? If you are then you might just want to give this Strawberry Pie recipe a try!