I’ll let you in on a not-so-small secret: I love pie. Like borderline-unhealthy-obsession-with-pie syndrome. Like if a recipe looks delicious and simple I will think to myself “Hmm, Kari, how can this translate into pie form?” (Which, I should warn you, doesn’t work with everything…like margaritas.)

So, pie obsession in mind, I was strolling the produce section last Sunday and stumbled upon super ripe, super cheap summer blueberries and, well, the rest is history. This recipe is delicious and somewhat nutritious (seriously people, pie is still pie, even if I sub sugar for Truvia), and the best part? Incredibly easy. Some might even say easy…as pie.

You will need:

- 6 cups of fresh (or frozen) blueberries. They’re in season and most likely on sale, so I’d just go with the fresh ones.
- The zest from about half a lemon. (Take a cheese grater to a fresh lemon and shave about half the skin)
- The juice from one lemon
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup white granulated sugar. I subbed for sugar, just because I don’t have any actual sugar in my apartment. If you use a sweetener instead, just make sure to check the package to see if one packet = one Tablespoon of sugar (because it might be a lot sweeter if they’re not equal).
- 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
- 2 Tbsp butter (unsalted), cut into small pieces (Again, I used a butter substitute)
- A frozen 9 “double pie crust, or two 9” crusts.
- 1 egg
- 1 Tablespoon milk

What to do:

- Preheat oven to 425
- Rinse, dry and de-stem fresh blueberries (skip if you bought frozen)
- In a large (really large) bowl, gently mix the blueberries, lemon zest, lemon juice, flour, and cinnamon.

- Pour blueberry mixture into the bottom crust
- Place tiny pieces of butter all over the top of the filling.

- Cover the bottom crust with the top. If you’re using two regular crusts, place the top crust upside down on a sheet of waxpaper for about 5 minutes before trying to detach it from the foil tray. Place top crust over the filling and tuck the edges under the bottom crust, pressing the edges together to make a tight seal. Optional: use a fork around the rim to make a pretty design.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg and milk. Use a pastry brush (or your fingers) to coat the crust with the eggwash.

- With a fork, poke 4 holes in the top crust of the pie (so steam can escape).
- Place on the middle rack of your oven, with a  cookie sheet on the lowest rack to catch any blueberry juice that may ooze out of your delicious pie while it’s baking. (Also an option, sticking your head in there to catch it with your mouth, but it might get a bit hot.)

- Bake at 425 for 20 minutes, then lower the temperature to 350 and bake for another 30 minutes. Set it on a cooling rack for about 20 minutes (that’s as long as I could wait) until cool.

Well, okay, that’s pretty disgusting, so I take it back (sorta). But baked pie crust is an entirely different story. It’s so versatile—you can use it for tarts, dessert pizza, and (obviously) pies. And you can fill those pies with anything—lemon curd, banana cream, fresh strawberries . . .

Now that we’re getting into some serious summer weather, fresh fruit (yes, the kind that you don’t take out of the freezer and probably haven’t had since you were home for Christmas) is soon going to be abundant in grocery stores and farmers’ markets all over the country. You’ll be able to pick your own berries for cheaper than the cost of a vanilla latte, and everyone knows that berries taste best in pie!

It’s easy to haul down to the store and pick up a ready-made pie crust, but who needs that? People (cute people, obviously) will be sooooo much more impressed if you can make your own. Not to mention the feeling of accomplishment that comes from putting a homemade pie on the table!

Here’s how you do it.

Stuff You Need
To make one double pie crust (bottom and top), get together:
- 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup unsalted butter or vegetable shortening
- 1 teaspoon salt
- A bowl of ice water
- A rolling pin

What You Do

1. Mix the flour and salt together.

2. Take ½ cup of the butter or shortening and cut or break it into tiny (pea-sized) pieces.

3. Toss these pieces into your flour mixture, and massage them in with your fingers. You want them to get smaller and combine with the flour. Go for the consistency of coarse meal.

4. Cut or break the remaining ½ cup of butter or shortening into tiny pieces.

5. Add that to the flour mixture. If you want big flakes in your crust, don’t combine it much at all—leave some big chunks. If you want a fine, crumbly crust, combine it much more thoroughly.

6. Add the ice water one tablespoon at a time to your flour mixture. After each addition, mix everything together with a fork. When it barely holds together, use your hands to gather everything up into a ball.

7. Break the ball in two, and flatten each smaller ball into a disc.

8. Wrap the discs in plastic wrap and put them in the fridge for at least a half hour. (The dough can also be frozen indefinitely.)

9. Whip those suckers out of the fridge, sprinkle your smooth work surface and your rolling pin with flour liberally, and roll out the crusts to about 1/8” thickness. Take one, fold it lightly into fourths to make it easier to put them in the pan, then shove it in there.

10. Fill that sucker with some fruit, bake it up and enjoy a scrumptious slab of that homemade pie!

Need some delicious pie recipes? Here you go. You (and everyone who licks the pie dish) can thank me later.

[Every week, CC and John bring you some of the weirdest, funniest, saddest things he hears on his college campus. Join the Overheard revolution!Leave your own overheard convos in the comments or send ‘em over!]

(Guy, stalking around office, exasperated.)

Guy: And nobody here knows what a cloaca is? Seriously? You guys need to get out more.

(Two girls at a dining hall table.)

Girl 1: It’s not like that. If you put anything in a crust, it’s a pie. That’s a pie.

Girl 2: What about cheesecake? Cheesecake has a crust.

Girl 1: No it doesn’t.

Girl 2: Have you ever had cheesecake? Have you even seen a cheesecake? This is a problem, like, for us. For you and me.

(Guy, bothering another guy outside a door.)

Guy 1: No, dude, no, that’s not cool.

Guy 2: C’mon, man. I gotta be your guest. Just for like, thirty seconds. You gotta let me be your guest, c’mon.

Guy 1: No! That’s stupid! Crazy!

(Girl, on the phone.)

Girl: Okay, what’s the office rule? No drinking? Or was it two people… only two people? Oh. Two people have to be sober. Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.

(Girl, reading paper, incredulous.)

Girl: Six shots? Over fifteen hundred calories? What are you shooting, Kahlua?

Girl 2: Pure chocolate fudge.

Girl 3: Deep-fried fudge-flavored lard.

(A guy slams his hands down on a table.)

Guy: No! Your life sucks because you couldn’t do a barrel roll!

(Guy, in line at Starbucks.)

Guy: Okay, not to hate on my boss, you know. No offense. But she’s an idiot, she gets distracted, she’s loud, she has no sense of humor and I can’t stand working with her. She makes my job so much harder than it should be. No offense.

(Guy, talking to a girl.)

Girl: They had those four-liter things. You want that?

Guy: Jeez. Four liters of wine. Why don’t we stop measuring in liters and start measuring in ‘how many couches I’m gonna light on fire.’

(Two guys in dining hall.)

Guy 1: Check it out. Steroid burger.

Guy 2: What?

Guy 1 (Completely seriously): Steroid burger. Like, with steroids.

(Submitted from a reader: Two girls reading a sign.)

Girl 1: What is EasyMac

Girl 2: A really easy Mac computer

Don’t worry; you can still eat some of the chocolatey peanut butter thing.

1. Exercise: Whether it is Christmas dinner, or a plate full of latkes, you know you will be eating something out of the ordinary (and off the charts in terms of calories) this holday season. Prepare in advance by getting a workout in. Most gyms are open – even on Christmas day – so don’t use the holiday as an excuse to take a vacation from fitness. Unless you want everyone to buy you a size up in the clothes on your holiday wish list.

2. Eat Before You Go: Whenever I go to holiday meals I tend to starve myself all day to make room for the scrumptious treats that will be served. That is a good idea in theory, until I find myself taking second and third servings of very unhealthy foods (and feeling horribly guilty/angry at myself later). Don’t go to these meals hungry! Eat a little snack before you go to curb your hunger, that way you can have a little bit of the foods you love without going completely overboard.

3. Survey The Scene: Your meal will most definitely have a ton of options, so take a lap and see what there is before you start loading up the plate. Once you see everything there is to offer, choose your dinner wisely – and, yes, you can take your favorites! – so you eat what you like without going nuts. But…

4. Moderation is Key: No one is telling you not to enjoy those special holiday foods. That would be unfair. (And totally hypocritical considering we are chowing down on a holiday cookie right now.) But just because you have to eat some of Grandma’s special pie, doesn’t mean you need to eat three giant hunks of it. Have a little slice and savor it; you will get the flavor without getting the gut.

The worst part of Thanksgiving is the dogs. Everyone has that one relative with a German shepherd, two Corgis and a Schnoodle/Pug mix. Some of us have more than one of these relatives, and some of us have many, many more than one. Some of these relatives have named their dogs Bill O’Reilly. All of these relatives arrive at every holiday party.

But you can’t just tell someone that you don’t like their dogs. There is no greater insult around the Thanksgiving table; you may as well have stuffed, dressed and roasted nephew Kenny.

Political beliefs work the same way, and in some ways are more annoying, because there’s no practical limit to how many you can stuff into the same party, and they’re usually invisible, unless Uncle Joe’s got some kind of witty hat (“Republicans Screw The Country, Democrats Usually Raise Taxes”).

And so you’ve got Grandma’s staunch Grand Old Politics jumping on your new dress and cousin Laura’s furious socialist anarchism taking up all the space on the couch and Teddy and Ralph are barking and howling about the liberal media and you can’t just shoot them.

So you’ve got to find a non-violent, pleasant solution to the problem. Just how do you deal with divergently political relatives?

The simple Thanksgiving solution is to compliment their cooking. This isn’t always easy, because people will put anything in a pie these days, and it might be compliment enough to even swallow Aunt Maura’s green bean and rhubarb casserole. But a quick white lie can be an effective deterrent to all-out family feuding (“All I’m saying is that they should learn to speak English — ” “Oh, Maura, I just love the way you’ve pickled the rhubarb!”).

Dropping the ‘willful ignorance’ bomb might sting, especially when this is the year for politically passionate young people, but it’s an acceptable Big Red Button when the situation gets too dire. Refuse to know anything about anyone, anywhere: just for today, you don’t talk about foreign politics, which includes anything outside the circumference of the pumpkin pie.

Alternately, you can simply pretend you’ve got wildly inconsistent political beliefs and simply agree with everything. Play it off as a product of your age: all that multi-tasking us young folk do has taught us to radically re-align our world view every five minutes, and maybe Grandpa will be impressed and give you ten dollars or something.

If you think you’ve got the wit, you can try taking both sides at once. Try playing devil’s advocate, but do it with such dripping sarcasm that your allies think you’re hilarious and your enemies just agree with you. After all, if people disagree with your political beliefs, it’s because they’re stupid, right? They’ll never catch on (“O’Reilly? He’s a genius! He’s got the sexiest pout on TV!”)

Finally, you can try to appeal to the elementary spirit of the day: we should cast aside our grievances and unite in the common spirit of thanks.

But who’s going to buy that?

Sometimes it seems like the only thing keeping the family together is the dogs.

One thing I had never really delved into was pie baking. Brownies, cookies, cakes — I loved them all and I could bake them fairly well. But pies…if it wasn’t refrigerated, I hadn’t tried it. And then I had a craving for apple pie.

My fiance being the loyal supporter he is, accompanied me to the store and watched me stare at the shelves trying to figure out what looked yummy. I’ve never been one for cooking apples (sometimes I have an issue cutting them uniformly) and since this was my first foray into pie-world, I didn’t want to risk screwing up the um, very essential filling. So, without an official recipe, and without really knowing what I was doing I came up with the following plan. No, it isn’t good for you, but it’s darn tasty with a huge scoop of vanilla ice cream.

You will need the following:

2 frozen 9-inch pie crusts

1 can apple pie filling

1/4 cup of Hershey’s Caramel Ice Cream Topping

1 tsp. (or a little more if you prefer but don’t get crazy–it’s a pie, not a tropical mojito) of Malibu Passion Fruit Rum

1 gallon of vanilla ice cream

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Slightly thaw the pie crusts. Press one into your pie pan. Poke light holes in the bottom with a fork (this is to keep the bottom crust from puffing too much)

2. Pour the apple pie filling into the crust and spread it evenly.

3. Sprinkle the rum over the filling.

4. Take a swig of rum (totally optional but very tasty!)

5. Drizzle caramel over the filling.

6. Take the second pie crust and lay it on top of the filling. Carefully, so you don’t tear the crust (if you do, no biggie, it’s pretty forgiving), pinch the edges of the top crust and the bottom crust together to seal the pie. If you want to get fancy, be my guest. I just wanted pie, so mine was very, um, “rustic” looking. Last, take a knife and make four slits in the top crust, in a sort of cross pattern, so that the filling can vent and you don’t end up with an apple pie volcano. Might be cool, but very inedible overflowing into the oven.

7. Bake at 350 for approximately 35-45 minutes or until your crust is golden brown. I definitely had to keep a watch on mine since I didn’t have a recipe to go by. Plus, every oven is different.

8. Once the crust is nice and brown, take the pie from the oven. I personally believe there is no reason to let that sucker cool unless you have to give the ice cream a little time to soften. But if you wish, you can. I think the best way to do it is to put the ice cream on top of the stove while the oven is still warm and let it slightly soften that way. Cut a slice of pie, top with your ice cream and additional caramel and go to town!

Trust me, this pie is worth every calorie.

(Pie pic courtesy of martyfahncke.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/appl)

Then of course I looked in the pantry and saw we had nothing in terms of pie crust ingredients. Could I make a crust-less pumpkin pie? I asked myself. Yes you can, the Internet answered, and in fact many people prefer crust-less pies because there’s way less carbs.

Part of the reason I’m not the best baker is because I don’t measure things real well and if I don’t have the right ingredients I substitute. This recipe is no different. I didn’t measure things perfectly and I made random substitutions. But guess what? It freaking tasted like pumpkin pie. Without the crust. Nice.

What You Need:

* 1 can of pumpkin

* 2 eggs

* around 2/3 cups sugar & sugar substitute combo (that’s all we had in the pantry)

* 1 cup half & half

* pumpkin pie spice / cinnamon

What To Do:

Mix your sugar and spices. I did about a half tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice and a few good shakes of cinnamon.

Mix your entire can of pumpkin, 2 eggs, and cup of half & half together with a fork (I’m not sure if the original recipe called for it being mixed with an beater…I didn’t do that), then add the sugar mixture.

Pour your mixture into a greased pie plate. I used Pam spray. It said “Pam for Baking” on it. It worked A-okay.

Bake your crust-less pie in a preheated oven at 425 for 15 minutes. Then turn the heat down to 300 and bake for 30-40 more minutes (I kind of forget the exact time and your oven will be different than mine).

Take your crust-less pie out and make sure it looks done. You can stick a fork in it like I did to check, but then you’ll have fork marks in your pie. If you don’t care, cool.

I recommend sticking your pie into the fridge for a while, and then cutting a slice and putting some whipped cream on it. You don’t have to feel guilty because there’s no crust, and pumpkin is a good source of fiber.

[If you make this, let me know how it goes!]

My fellow editor in crime knows how much I love crust and fruit, so she recently sent me this recipe with the words “True story: this pie will make you drool” in the subject line of the email. Even though I’m a pretty stupid cook, I decided to try to make the thing the night I got the email — and you know what? It really wasn’t that hard. The whole presentation wasn’t Martha Stewart pretty or anything, but it tasted like heaven and Martha Stewart has 700 people helping her on a daily basis.

What You Need

9-inch frozen pie crust

3/4 c. plus 5 T. all-purpose flour

2/3 c. firmly packed golden brown sugar

1/3 c. granulated sugar plus 1 T. for the filling

2 t. ground cinnamon

1/8 t. salt

1/2 c. cold unsalted butter, cut into 3/4 in. pieces

5 c. blueberries

1. Prebake the frozen pie crust according to the package’s directions. (Don’t forget to poke holes in the bottom of the crust with a fork or else it will puff up and ruin everything)

2. Once your crust is done, preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

3. For the crumble topping (droooooool): Combine 3/4 c. flour, 1/3 c. of brown sugar, 1/3 c. granulated sugar, 1 t. cinnamon and the salt. Toss in the butter pieces to coat with the flour mixture. Using your fingertips (or if you’re a wuss, a pastry blender) squish the butter/flour mixture until it resembles pea-sized crumbs. Resist the urge to toss a handful of this delicious sand into your mouth, and set the topping aside.

3. Onto the blueberry filling: In a large bowl, combine the blueberries, the remaining brown sugar, the remaining cinnamon, and 4 T. of the flour. Stir gently to ensure that each little blueberry gets dusted with the dry ingredients. Sprinkle the remaining 1 T. of flour and 1 T. of granulated sugar over the bottom of the prebaked pie crust, spreading it evenly. (This turns the blueberry juice into a gooey, purple sludge.)

4. Sprinkle the crumble topping evenly over the blueberry filling. (Really pile it on there.) Bake the pie on a rack in the lower-third of the oven until the topping is golden brown and the blueberry filling is just starting to erupt; it should be bubbly, peeking through the buttery and delicious crumb terrain (about 50-60 minutes).

5. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely. Serve at room temperature

And for those of us who have trouble eating just one piece of pie at a time (I’m raising my hand here), this little invention is awesome. Individual pie slices? Yes please.

I have never liked blueberry pie. In fact, I would even go beyond that—I’ve always thought it was disgusting. I am not the biggest fan of fresh blueberries, either, but lately I have started to like them more and more.

Despite all of this, last week I could not stop thinking about how I really wanted to make a blueberry pie. Why did I think this… why? I have no idea. I am still unable to explain it. But I suspect it was divine intervention, because the resulting blueberry pie was THE BEST THING I HAVE EVER EATEN.

The recipe is dunce-free (not that CC readers are dunces, of course) and uses fresh berries, which I suspect is the real reason for my enthusiasm behind this pie. All previous blueberry pies that were set in front of me were either a) made from cans of blueberry pie filling or b) things that I refused to eat because I was under the impression that I hated blueberry pie.

This recipe is different. Different! It is wonderful and fantastic, and it is beautifully photographed in an appealing step-by-step fashion. You cannot mess up this pie. It tastes delicious either warm or cold. It is nice to have with cream, ice cream, or Cool Whip. And it does not become a disgusting, gelatinous mess (although it would be okay if you cut down the amount of cornstarch a little). The best part is that you can really pack the pie with fresh berries (I even threw in a few sliced strawberries):

You can even reduce the recipe with no problems. To make a four-serving mini-pie, I used 1/3 of all the ingredients and it turned out great. Delicious. Fantastic, even. The only word of caution I have is this: Please, I beg you, put your pie pan on top of a baking sheet coated with wax paper or parchment paper. My pie bubbled over in the oven, and I was on my hands and knees for a half-hour scraping fresh blueberry juice off the bottom of the oven.

Really, though, it was still worth it.

In good news, though, it tasted great. And it ended up looking exactly like something else I like a lot—pizza.

So if you too want to try dessert pizza, here’s all you need: about 1 cup sliced fresh strawberries, 1 small sliced apple (optional), 1 tablespoon sugar, 1 ½ teaspoons cornstarch, 1 tablespoon water, enough pie dough for 1 small pie (use your discretion), 1-2 tablespoons chocolate chips, 1 tablespoon milk, and a little bit (not more than a tablespoon) of brown sugar, oats, and flour.

After you’ve sliced your strawberries and apple, toss them in a small saucepan and warm them on medium heat until they’re bubbling.

Add the sugar, and mix the cornstarch and water together. Add those, too. The mixture will thicken after a few seconds. Keep bubbling away for another few minutes until it’s quite thick. You can also preheat the oven to 350 at this point.

In the meantime, prepare your “crust.” First, melt the chocolate chips and the milk in a small pan. Stir or whisk them until they’re velvety smooth. Turn off the heat. Roll out the pie dough quickly until it’s very thin (1/8” or thinner). Then take a pastry brush or a spoon and paint the bottom of the crust with the melted chocolate. You’re doing this because it tastes excellent (duh) and also because it will prevent the fruit mixture from making the bottom soggy.

Then make your topping. Stir together the flour, brown sugar, and oats (use more brown sugar than flour or oats, but make the mixture to taste).

After your fruit mixture has simmered for a while and the chocolate coating on your crust has hardened a little bit, pour the fruit over the chocolate. Don’t overfill it—eat some of the fruit mixture plain if you have to.

Fold up the corners, and try to make sure that there aren’t any leaks.

Sprinkle on the topping…

… then bake for about 30 minutes. Mmmm!