Can I pour you a piece of pie? or, Suck it Emeril part 2

Being pregnant and crazy means I come up with some ideas that I normally wouldn't and should be vetoed but they aren't because people fear the crazy pregnant lady. For example, the Husband's birthday was last Friday and while I was thinking about what we were going to do for it, I got an e-mail from Ikea saying that June 20th was Midsummer's Eve and the Swedish celebrate it with meatballs and potatoes and herring and strawberries and caviar. I decided to pass on the herring and caviar and just focus on the other items. That part turned out pretty well. I made use of my friend Kraft Foods and did their easy cheese swedish meatball recipe- seriously, buy meatballs from Trader Joe's, then let them thaw in your fridge overnight and stick them in the crockpot with a can of beef gravy and half a cup of sour cream. Damn tasty and stupid easy- as well as this one I discovered for potatoes. The potatoes were a big hit and also pretty easy to do. The Husband got his second banana cake of the week- check Better Homes and Gardens for that recipe, and I used store bought cream cheese frosting. Everyone raved about it. Who knew? Anyway, after the dust settled we had a lot of leftovers, particularly strawberries. I lurve strawberries and haven't had strawberry pie in forever. What better way to use the two containers of leftover strawberries than put them in a pie?

I may be lazy, because I bought frozen pie crusts, but I do have standards so I didn't want to buy a sleeve of that red goo from the store. I paged through my cookbooks to see what could be done. The Joy of Cooking was pretty minimal in their pie recipe so that got nixed. I think I found a couple recipes that called for rhubarb or making a chiffon pie or else didn't have a recipe at all, among the Gourmet cookbook, Better Homes and Gardens and my Baking Illustrated book, so I hit the web. I was thinking Paula Deen, but first I saw the Emeril recipe. It did set off warning bells in my head, because some of you might remember the great Black Forest Cake debacle of Christmas 2006- apparently it was so bad I never blogged about it, but it involved a spectacular meltdown. I used an Emeril recipe to make a very involved Black Forest Cake and there was epic fail which caused me to proclaim, loudly, that Emeril could suck it. Anyway, come on! Strawberry pie! It'll be awesome!!!

Ha ha haaaaaaa. I sliced and hulled the strawberries while the pie crust baked, then started to make the sauce that would hold the pie together. Strawberries, check. Cup of sugar, check. Vanilla, also check. I cooked that until the sugar melted and while that was going on I mixed up the cornstarch/water/brandy cocktail Emeril asked for. Okay, the sugar melted so I added the cocktail to it and then let it cook until it thickened. It thickened nicely, let me tell you. I let it cool while we ran errands then poured it into the pie crust, covered it and stuck it into the fridge. It said let sit 6 hours, so I figured waiting until the next day would be fine, right?

I had dreams about this pie, mainly because when I licked the sauce off the spoon and the sides of the pot it was really freaking tasty. Way better than the red goo you get at the store. I got all excited and said "I'm never buying red goo from the store again! Emeril, you're a geeeeeeeenius! I'm sorry I blasphemed against you after that whole Black Forest hot mess! Damn, this is tasty!!!" At work I promised my assistant she'd have a tasty piece of strawberry pie, made from scratch, no less, the next day. On the way home from work I picked up some squirty whipped cream, because I thought that would taste super good. After dinner settled I looked at the Husband, all excited, and said Pie!!! We pulled the pie out, I got a knife and some plates and forks and took the cover off. As soon as I stabbed it with a knife I knew something had gone horribly wrong. The nice thick sauce from the day before? Soup. How the hell could it have gone from nicely thickened like pudding to runny and nasty overnight in the fridge?! We still ate the pie, in bowls instead of on plates, with squirty whipped cream to kind of bring it together, and it still tasted nice but damn. We made the "Can I pour you a piece of pie?" joke too. My aunt's mother in law made the soupiest lemon meringue pie in christendom and my uncle always used to say "Can I pour you a piece of pie?" I also said some nasty things about another Emeril recipe biting me in the ass. Screw you, Emeril! I am NOT going to be fooled again!

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go cry into my pie bowl. Sniffle.