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Rhubarb-Strawberry Pie

By Beatrice Ojakangas

Makes one 9-inch pie

Ingredients

Pastry for 1 double-crust 9-inch pie
1 pint fresh strawberries, cleaned, hulled and sliced
2 cups sliced raw rhubarb
3/4 cup tightly packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter
1 egg white, lightly beaten
Granulated sugar
Whipped cream or heavy cream

Method

Prepare the pie crust and use half of it to line a 9-inch pie pan. Preheat oven to 4250F.

In a bowl, combine the strawberries, rhubarb, brown sugar, granulated sugar, and flour. Pile the fruit in the pastry-lined pie pan and level off. Dot with butter. Lay the top crust over the fruit. Seal and flute the edges. Cut vents in the top. Brush crust with beaten egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Bake 40 to 50 minutes, until golden. Serve warm or cooled to room temperature with whipped cream or cream to pour over pieces of the pie.

Nutrition Highlights

Aside from denying your guests the delicious flavor of a homemade pie, you do a disservice to your guests when you feed them a commercially prepared pie that may be loaded with preservatives, artificial flavors and heart threatening trans-fatty acids.

Tips

Fruit pies are often sweetened with sugar but you can always use less if you don't like your pies so sweet or if you try to limit your sugar intake. Simply mix the fruit with half the allotted amount of sugar, allow it to sit for 10 minutes and taste it, and you can add more sugar at that point if you feel that it is required.

Credit

The above recipe was taken from Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts (2004, The University of Minnesota Press, $18.95) by Beatrice Ojakangas. You can get more information and purchase Great Old-Fashioned American Desserts directly from Ms. Ojakangas' website at beatrice-ojakangas.com.