Quilting in the Rain

Summer is in full swing here at the Brandvig household. That being said, my sewing room has been quiet. 🙂 I’ve been spending my Summer days with my boys. Any free time I get in the evening has been spent designing fabric (my 4th fabric collection is underway!). This Summer has been particularly wonderful for berries! One activity i’ve been doing is making freshly picked berry pies! A simple activity I can do with my kids.

Pictured above: my quiet sewing room.

Pictured above: my son using my sewing room to escape his little brother.

Anyway, though this isn’t a quilt-related blog post, baking is another hobby I truly enjoy especially when we pick the fruit ourselves. In fact, before I got the quilt bug, I had dreams of opening my own bakery.  There’s just something so satisfying about making food that you picked straight from the earth, and then turning it into something delicious for everyone to enjoy.

Today I am sharing my three favorite pie recipes with you. These are no fail recipes that I always come back to time and time again. And the best part is they’re all very simple to make. You probably have most of the ingredients in your kitchen already. All you need is the fresh fruit!

The 3 recipes I’m sharing are blueberry pie, blackberry cobbler and apple pie, in that order. These recipes ALWAYS turn out good, and people always want the recipe afterwards.

Anyhoodles, let’s get to the pies!!!

Blueberry Pie

Bam! So yummy.

I started making this pie when our blueberries last Summer grew like crazy! We were able to make 4 pies from our 3 blueberry bushes. For whatever reason, we didn’t yield that many berries this Summer so we went to a U-Pick farm (Canter-berry Farms in Auburn, WA).

Anyway, here’s the recipe below. I printed it years ago from Taste of Home. It’s called “Contest Winning Fresh Blueberry Pie” by Linda Kernan of Mason, Michigan. Thanks Linda for the amazing recipe! (Update: found the link to the recipe, click HERE. Except I used pre-made graham cracker pie crust).

• 3/4 cup sugar
• 3 tablespoons corn starch
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup cold water
• 5 cups fresh blueberries, divided
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 pastry shell – (I use the pre-made graham cracker crust shell! Sooo good!)

1. In a saucepan over medium heat, combine sugar, corn starch. salt and water until smooth. Add 3 cups blueberries. Bring to a boil; cook and stire for 2 minutes or until thickened and bubbly.

2. Remove from heat. Add butter, lemon juice and remaining berries; stir until butter is melted. Cool. Pour into pastry shell. Refrigerate. Serve cold. Yields 8 servings.

That’s it! Simple and so tasty. A light and refreshing Summer dessert.

Paige approved!

Next recipe…

Blackberry Cobbler

I made this recipe when I found the holy grail for picking blackberries in the back of an elementary school nestled in our neighborhood. Blackberries are typically ready to pick in early August. Make sure you pick the black ones. That might be a no-brainer to some, but trust me, that might be news to someone else.

This recipe is SO easy and scrumptious. And PLEASE, pretty please follow Jer’s words of wisdom>> you have to eat it a la mode for the full experience. Breyer’s Natural Vanilla ice cream is where it’s at!

You can find and print the recipe right HERE. Again…we love eating it warm with Breyers Natural Vanilla ice cream on the side >> PERFECTION.

Last but not least, good old fashioned apple pie recipe…

Piper’s Apple Pie

I shared photos of this pie on my instagram and I got a handful of people messaging me for the recipe. You can find the background story on the apples in the photos beneath the recipe. 🙂

• 4 or 5 medium sized apples (I used green varieties for a tarter taste). Peel and slice thinly.
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Mix all of the above together, and then pour into the pie crust.

Below is the simple Pie Crust recipe I use.

• 2 cups flour
• 1 tsp salt
• 2/3 cup butter
• 5-7 tablespoons cold water

Mix the above ingredients together. Knead it, and then split the dough in half into two balls. Use a rolling pin to roll it out. Use one half for the bottom of the pastry shell and the other for the top. Makes the perfect amount.

Cover with foil. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Uncover the foil. Bake for an additional 20 minutes. Then, stuff your face.

Kidding! But you must eat it a la mode! It’s just not the same without the ice cream. Again, Breyer’s Natural Vanilla is where it’s at.

That’s it!

If you’re a history nerd, you’ll like this slice of Seattle history. 😉 These apples we picked are from a century old orchard planted by Andrew and Minna Piper in the late 1800s. They were confectioners who had a candy store in Seattle before it burned down in The Great Seattle Fire of 1889.

Being confectioners, they planted apple trees with lots of tart varieties good for baking (primarily Heirloom), including other nut trees. Anyway, fast forward to about 100 years later in the early 1980s, the City of Seattle volunteers found the overgrown orchard while surveying the land. First they spotted an apple tree, and when they kept uncovering the vines they realized it was a full orchard on a hillside covering about 1.5 acres. 29 nut and apple trees had survived over the years, and now there are about 50 after some have been added.

This orchard is such a treasure in the City of Seattle, and not too many people know about it. It’s alongside an urban trail, called Pipers Creek, that leads down to Carkeek Park in Seattle, Washington. When we pass through, we pick 4-5 apples, just enough to make a pie.

Thank you to the Piper’s for planting these wonderful apple trees, and to the city of Seattle volunteers and Seattle Parks and Rec for taking care of it.

Anyway, I hope this post inspires you to make a pie, lol! Seriously though, it’s currently August 1st as i’m writing this which is prime blackberry picking season. Stop what you’re doing right now and go pick blackberries (assuming you’re not on the loo staring at your phone 😉

As mentioned earlier, my sewing room has been quiet this Summer as i’ve been spending my days primarily outdoors with my boys. Though I did manage to sneak in some english paper piecing (EPP) projects during our road trip and  stay at a cabin in Mazama, WA. I’m hooked on EPP now.

I used my 3rd collection called Woodland Rose (available this Fall!) to make these EPP stars.

Enjoy your Summer everyone! You can expect me to be writing about my 4th collection soon-ish. 😉