Razzleberry Pie

This is who were visiting this year!
Can you tell my kids LOVE them!

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I love it.  It's my favorite holiday.  It has all the family together-ness, food, festiveness, and wonderfulness of Christmas without all the pressure of the gifts.  It's the perfect holiday.  I just finished making the Razzleberry Pies for this years festivities.  We are actually heading out to San Francisco to visit some favorite friends this year for Thanksgiving.  Our friends told me not to worry about bringing anything.............but you know me.  I'll have a cooler or two full by the time the actual day rolls around.

last years ice skating

Can I tell you about my first Thanksgiving being a Clawson?  I hope nobody takes offense, because no offense is meant.  I love James' family.  They're the best.  I gained 6 more sisters when I married James and I feel blessed everyday to have them.  As you can tell the family is large.  Way large and they celebrated Thanksgiving with the enormous extended family up until a few years ago.  First off, Thanksgiving was celebrated at a church.  I'd never experienced such a thing.  We never had huge celebrations as I was growing up.  Sometimes it would be just our family and one other.  Sometimes we went to Vegas and ate at a buffet.  But most times it involved a small intimate group with movies, ice skating on the pond, and a trap shoot.  So the church thing really threw me off.  The aunts cooked for hours.  They looked like a bunch of lunch ladies in their fun aprons, and enormous amounts of food being prepared.  When the big event was finally ready I was polite.  The cute little new comer, and I didn't want to look like a Ziggy Piggy so I waited my turn in line.  By the time I started dishing up some kids were already done.  I came to the turkey platter and low and behold it was empty.  EMPTY!!  I had to choke back sobs right there.  I wanted my mom, my dad, my little brothers, my dog, my house, and DANG IT I WANTED TURKEY!

Happy pies from Thanksgivings past

I went home that day and cried my eyeballs out.  Really!  I did.  I questioned whether I wanted to be in this for better or worse.  The "Worse" was pretty bad.  No turkey.  James was so kind and thoughtful.  At least I don't remember him being mean or telling me to suck it up or anything.  I learned that day a huge lesson.  I always have a roasted turkey in my fridge now.    I can't leave my turkey happiness up to anyone but myself.  I won't ever be left standing without my obligatory leftover turkey sandwich again.  Actually it doesn't matter where we have Thanksgiving I always have leftover everything in my fridge for the Holiday weekend.  It's important to my cheerfulness.

So now enjoy the start of the season.  This pie is absolutely the best!  THE BEST!  It makes 5 at a time and you freeze them until needed.  This pie won first place at the Utah State Fair, and is a favorite of Elder Bednar.    (I love hearing from happy recipe takers.  Every once in awhile I have someone come up and tell me about one of the recipes I've posted and how much they love it.  I love that!  It makes my day!)  I didn't make either of these winner pies, but as you can tell, the recipe is a winner.  I hope you enjoy!    (I hope you have gobs of turkey too:)  I'l post some of my other favorite holiday recipes too.  It's the most wonderful time of the year! as Emma would say!  Loves and Kisses!!

Pies under construction.  Love on wheels!

Razzleberry Pie

Crust:

6 c. flour

3 c. Crisco

3 t. salt

1 1/2 c. cold water

In a large bowl place flour and salt and cut Crisco into the flour until it resembles coarse meal.  I actually have found it is easier to use you hands to make this dough than a pastry blender.  Add the water and just bring the dough together.  Don't over mix or it will get really tough.  Divide the dough into 5 big dough balls.  Each dough ball will then be divided into a top and bottom crust.  I roll out 5 bottom crusts and place them in 8or 9 inch disposable pie pans.  After all the bottom crusts are ready I divide the filling equally between the 5 pies.  Then top with the top crust, crimp the edges and vent the pie.  I place tin foil over the top of the pie and place in the freezer for later use.

Filling:

4 3/4 c. water

3 1/3 c. sugar

1 large raspberry jello package

3 rounded 1/3 c. measures of cornstarch (approx. 1 1/3 c. of cornstarch)

Stir constantly and bring the ingredients to a boil.  Boil until it is clear and thick.  Fold in:

1 lb. frozen raspberries

1 lb. frozen blackberries

1 lb frozen blue berries

I usually add extra berries since I have gallons of them frozen from my garden.  Do what you got to do.  Also if I don't have all the berries I've done it with just raspberries, or I usually add Huckleberries into the mix.  

When you would like to bake a pie take it out of the freezer and brush the frozen pie with a little cream or milk and sprinkle white sugar on top.  This makes the pie sparkly.  Bake in a    375'F oven for 1 hour from frozen.  Make sure the pie is puffed up completely in the middle.  I sometimes have to bake an extra 10 mins. or so.  This pie really is dang good!!