On Mother’s Day all my daughters telephoned me, and one them said she was “going to spend the day cooking, and all the recipes would be things her mother used to make”

For dessert she wanted to make strawberry pie as we used to make it, but she had lost the recipe in a recent move. When I told another daughter what she had said, the response was “Oh, I had forgotten about that pie and I LOVE IT, do put it on the blog!

Neither of my daughters remembered just what cookbook the recipe came from, so I searched my stand-bys from their childhood, and after going through Betty Crocker’s, The Joy of Cooking, and a couple of others, I found it in The New McCall’s Cookbook.  Tears came to my eyes because the book was a gift from my own mother shortly before she died so many years ago.  I loved that cookbook! And, just for fun I took a picture of it to point out just how much I loved it – you know the phrase, “you always hurt the ones you love”.  The book has been so loved through the years that it is falling apart!

Ingredients

1. 9-inch baked pie shell
2. 3-pints fresh strawberries
3. 1-cup sugar
4. 2-½ tablespoons cornstarch
5. ½ cup water
6. 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
7. 2 tablespoons Cointreau or orange juice
8. 1-cup heavy cream, whipped
9. 2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Directions: You will be making a pie shell, a strawberry glaze, and preparing strawberries to place in the shell.  Allow about 4 hours from start to finish.  The pie can rest in the refrigerator for several hours, with a minimum of 2.

1. Make pie shell and let cool.
2. Make glaze:  Wash one pint of strawberries in cold water, drain, and hull.
3. Place in a medium saucepan and crush with a potato masher or immersion blender.
4. Combine sugar and cornstarch and stir into the strawberries in the saucepan.
5. Add the ½ cup of water.
6. Stirring constantly, bring the mixture to boiling under low heat. The mixture will be thickened and translucent (the magic of corn starch!)
7. Strain into a bowl and add the tablespoon of butter. Cool. You are done with the glaze.
8. Wash the 2 pints of reserved strawberries, drain and hull.  You should have 3 cups.
9. Toss the strawberries in a medium bowl with the Cointreau or orange juice. Let stand for 30 minutes.
10. Assembling the pie: Arrange the reserved strawberries in the pie crust.  Pour the cooled glaze over the strawberries and chill for at least 2 hours.
11. Just before serving, whip the cream, add the confectioners’ sugar and garnish the pie with the whipped cream, or, alternatively, serve the pie and pass around the whipped cream to those who want it.

Sometimes at the end of a recipe I will write Enjoy! But, a picture IS worth a thousand words, you will agree when you see the pleased looks of my son-in-law and granddaughter after Julie made her strawberry pie, as  promised, this Mother’s Day.