November 5 "Meal": Berry Pie

We were going to head down to Shaun's grandparent's cabin in the mountains in Georgia.  As a thank you I decided to bake the Cranberry and Wild Blueberry Pie.  It was the first pie I'd ever made a lattice top on.  Therefore, I made the whole Pie Crust recipe, which makes two disks of crust.  Like most crusts, this one uses flour, salt, sugar, and equal parts butter and non-hydrogenated solid vegetable shortening.  The shortening gives it more flakiness.  The filling is to-die-for, with blueberries (frozen, which we picked back in July), cranberries (frozen), sugar, corn starch, cinnamon sticks, lemon juice, and lemon zest.  It all gets simmered together until the mixture thickens.  The recipe asks you to remove the cinnamon sticks before pouring the filling into the crust, but I was a bit preoccupied and left them in.  See the picture of Shaun's grandfather showing off his cinnamon "cigar" that he found in his pie.  Fortunately, I was able to excavate the other stick before anyone else got to it.

The lattice top turned out alright, but the crust was a bit dry, making it fall apart some as I tried to weave the pieces together.  In the end, the outcome was delicious.  This ranks as one of my new favorite pies.

Yumminess: 10 out of 10
Cost: Approx. $9 for 1 pie
Time: Bon Appetit said 1 hour for prep and 4 hours total (not including the crust).  It took me about 30 minutes of prep and 4 hours total (including the crust).
Was it worth it?: Yes, definitely!