Strawberry-rhubarb Deep-dish Pie

Total Time: 1 hr 20 mins Preparation Time: 30 mins Cook Time: 50 mins

Ingredients

• 2 pints strawberries
• 1 lb rhubarb (without tops, or can use frozen)
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 tablespoons quick-cooking tapioca (to thicken it)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• pastry for double-crust pie (*see notes)
• 1 tablespoon butter (or margarine, if you prefer)
• 1 tablespoon milk

Recipe

• 1 hull strawberries, cut each in half. cut rhubarb into 1/2 inch pieces (or if using frozen, thaw and drain).
• 2 in large bowl, gently toss berries and rhubarb with sugar, flour, tapioca, vanilla extract, and salt.
• 3 let strawberry-rhubarb mixture stand 30 minutes to soften tapioca, stir occasionally.
• 4 * while waiting, prepare pastry dough (*pie crust: my favorite personal recipe is 2 cups flour + 6-7 tablespoons of crisco butter flavor shortening, mashed together till forms crumbles and a few tablespoons of ice cold water stirred in until it forms a dough, then divided into 2 balls, wrapped in plastic wrap, and chilled until you're ready to roll it into pie crusts).
• 5 preheat oven to 425 degrees fahrenheit.
• 6 roll out dough, put one crust in deep pie plate, fill pie with berries mixture, top with bits of butter.
• 7 roll 2nd crust and cut into 10 strips -- 5 will go one direction, other 5 will cross over first 5 to form a lattice (a picture would be worth 1000 words here). press/crimp sides of pie. brush lattice surface with milk.
• 8 bake in oven for 50 mins.or until it looks golden brown on top. (keep a baking sheet under pie pan in case of juices flowing over side of pie dish).
• 9 should let pie stand about an hour to cool down a bit and let juices set, but i have a hard time waiting that long.