Home Economics--Strawberry Pie!

For the most part, Carson has been uninterested in doing much in the kitchen, which as someone who loves to create in the kitchen, has been a bit of a thorn in my side! But sometimes all it takes, is the right thing to light a spark. So when Carson ordered a collectible video game set and it came with a strawberry pie recipe, he had that spark happen (a strawberry pie is part of the storyline in the video game Celeste). I was repeatedly asked if we had strawberries in the house, until we did indeed have strawberries in the house! Let me tell you, when someone takes an interest in something--run with it! (whether it's a 4 year old wanting to wash dishes or weed the garden or it's a 14 year old wanting to bake a pie!) That's just how we are choosing to roll here at Wiebe Academy of Life and Learning!

What subjects does a project like this cover for a life learning student? Well, clearly reading and comprehension are involved! There are measurement and fraction skills being honed in the math department. Carson asked questions about why certain ingredients were used in the recipe allowing for discussion about the 4 different types of taste receptors as well as discussing some of the science involved in kitchen chemistry. So at a minimum, language arts, math, science and home economics are involved!

Here is the recipe card we got with the collectors items from his video game:

To simplify things, since two in our household cannot have gluten, we opted to use a pre-made gluten free pie crust, although my son totally would have made the crust if I gave him that option! For those of you that may want to try making this strawberry pie, I'll include the instructions with pictures of Carson doing the various steps as we did them.

Ingredients:

-2 pounds fresh strawberries

-2/3 cup sugar

-3 tablespoons corn starch

-1/2 teaspoon salt

-1 tablespoon lemon juice

-1 teaspoon vanilla extract

-1 large egg

-pie dough/crust

-honey

Step 1: Preheat oven to 425 degrees F

Step 2: Hull and halve strawberries. Set a few aside to use as garnishes

Step 3: Mix sugar, corn starch, salt, lemon juice and vanilla in a bowl with the strawberries for 3-5 minutes

Step 4: Pour the strawberry filling into the base pie crust

Step 5: Place top crust as you wish over the pie (we cut out shapes since the second crust did not stay together well when we defrosted it...you could try doing a lattice if your crust allows)

Step 6: Beat egg to create egg wash. brush the egg wash on top of the pie crust

Step 7: Sprinkle sugar over the top pie crust

Step 8: Place on the lowest oven rack and bake for 20 minutes

Step 9: Reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F and continue to bake for 1 hour until the crust becomes a golden brown

Step 10: Remove pie from the oven and drizzle with honey

Doesn't the pie look scrumptious?

Serve warm with ice cream or whipped cream.

It tasted amazing! And my son is already asking if we have enough strawberries to make this pie again! Yes son, we will make it again!

Hope you give this recipe a try and love it as much as we do!