Miss Hannah's Montana Adventure: National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day

Today is National Strawberry Rhubarb Pie Day!

I have never made a strawberry rhubarb pie (since it's not my favorite) or even cooked with rhubarb. At all. Ever. Bring on the challenge!

For help, I went to Andrea. She is our camp director's wife, a good friend, and amazing cook/baker. She has made this kind of pie before and I have enjoyed eating hers.

A friend of the camp grows rhubarb and was generous to offer us as much as we needed so we went to her house and picked us some fresh rhubarb. Yup, I got the full experience. The plants grow really big. It just so happens that this friend also owns/lives on a dairy farm. Andrea gave me a little tour of that and taught me some things about the cows and the milking process. Very interesting! Too bad I did not have my camera with me.

After lunch and a short break for me we met up to make the pies. She has a great crust recipe (butter, crisco, flour, salt, vinegar, egg, and ???) that rolled out very well and was flaky. For the filling, she combined several recipes with her general know-how. First we mixed the dry ingredients (minute tapioca, sugar, salt, and ???). Then we chopped the rhubarb and poured boiling water over it. Once it was very dry we tossed it in the sugar mixture with the strawberries until everything was well coated. Then we beated an egg with some water and added that. The filling went into the crust and we dotted it with some cut up butter. Then the top crust went on. We each did a different decorative edging and steam vent. Some foil around the edges helped prevent burning. The pies baked until the crust was golden brown and the filling was bubbly.

About an hour later VOILA: beautiful pies and memories of a fun day.