Helloooooo, summer!

Summer = fresh fruit.  And fresh fruit = delicious pies.  Particularly strawberry pie.  Yummmmm.

But I'll get to that in a second.  First, I need to tell you about the most awesomely awesome Breakfast Pie that was consumed in one sitting last week.  Between two people.  It was THAT good (and also low-calorie!).

I got this recipe from my friend Kelsey, and it's basically a quiche.  A delicious quiche.  Yes, I did quiche back in December, but this was a very different recipe in a lot of ways.  My mom's quiche didn't have a crust.  This one did.  Plus, a few of the ingredients and the baking process was a bit different.  Also, this one is technically called "Breakfast Pie" and not quiche.  :)

So it was a combination of eggs, cheese, milk/cream, broccoli, ham, salt, and pepper that went into a crust and baked into pure deliciousness.

The boyfriend and I sat down to have this for dinner, and we each started off with a large slice (equaling half of the pie between the two of us).  It was so savory and salty, and all around awesome that we quickly gobbled up the rest of it as well.  Super, super good.

I think that pie actually kicked off my recent egg obsession.  I've always liked eggs (scrambled eggs were one of the first things I learned to cook as a kid, and I used to make them for a snack all the time), but lately I've been making them a LOT.  Awhile back I made some poached eggs (a first for me), and my new obsession is omelets.  I've never made a successful omelet before, because I usually get bored waiting for it to cook and wind up scrambling it.  However, I've picked up a little patience somewhere, and I'm now an omelet fiend!  I can't get enough of them.  Nom nom nom.

Okay, back to the pies!

The other pie I have to update you on is a Strawberry Pie, the recipe for which came from my friend Sara.  Strawberry pies always look so so so good in pictures, but I've always been afraid to try them and have it be disastrous.

Anyway, I gave this one a shot.  The crust was different than most... a combination of flour, pecans, sugar, salt, and melted butter.  Combined, it forms a dough, which is then spread into a pan and baked.

Then whole strawberries are added to the cooled crust, stems trimmed and pointing up.  I cut up a few extras to squeeze in between the larger ones, just to make it look full.

Then a glaze is poured over the top... the glaze is water, sugar, corn starch, and mashed strawberries, which are boiled together in a pot for about 10 minutes.  Once the mixture is thickened (it smells delicious, by the way), it's poured over the top of the pie.

Finally, I piped whipped cream around the edges.  It was the most beautiful pie I've made so far... the cream looked perfect around the edges, and the strawberries had that super fresh and super shiny look to them (thank you, glaze).

Thankfully, it tasted just as delicious as it looked!  Holy yummy!  The glaze made the strawberries taste incredibly sweet... it really enhanced the strawberry flavor.  I think I might make just strawberries and glaze as a treat in the future!  Scrumptious.

It didn't slice well at all, but as I've said many times before, those are usually the best pies.  The crust was also fantastic, and though I never would've thought to use pecans before, the nuts really offset the sweetness of the fruit and gave it an overall balanced flavor.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

The other bonus to the pie was that I had all of the ingredients except the strawberries!  I love cheap pies :)  I'm hoping to keep them cheap for the rest of the summer... the bonus to fruit pies is that other than crust, the only necessary ingredient is fruit!

Many more pies to come!  I can't wait :)