Mostly Rhubarb Pie

I bought two huge bunches of rhubarb stalks Sunday morning at the City Market. They were beautiful - bright red and inspiring; so I decided to make a pie. I didn't pick the best time to make said pie, what with the husband being gone and the boy deciding to give up his afternoon nap, but I am nothing if not an overachiever, so I did it anyway. I should lie to you and tell you that the boy made this pie, because then you wouldn't judge my less-than-beautiful crust, but instead I'll take all the credit because...holy buckets, it tastes so good. Even with my mistakes! Cobbling together two recipes, I made it work (sort of) without corn starch, and even with the boneheaded addition of a couple of frozen strawberries. The filling was soupier than I like, but the crust recipe I have to share. It's so flaky and buttery and gooooood.

I used the Cooks Illustrated crust (from Baking Illustrated) but brushed it with milk & a sprinkling of superfine sugar before baking, rather than an egg wash. My filling was a modified Bittman: I added frozen strawberries to keep it from being too tart (I got a little scared about the 5 cups of rhubarb) and I used flour as my thickener because I apparently threw out my corn starch. The truth is, I'm all about making mistakes with pie because it only means I get to make more pies! Hooray!

Basic Pie Dough

2 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
1 tsp salt
2 T sugar
1/2 c vegetable shortening, chilled
12 T cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/4-inch pieces
6-8 T ice water

Process the flour, salt and sugar in a food processor until combined. Add the shortening and process until the mixture has the texture of coarse sand, about 10 seconds. Scatter the butter pieces over the flour mixture; cut the butter into the flour until the mixture is pale yellow and resembles coarse crumbs, with butter bits no larger than small peas, about ten 1-second pulses. Turn the mixture into a medium bowl.

Sprinkle 6 T of the ice water over the mixture. With a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Press down on the dough with the broad side of the spatula until the dough sticks together, adding up to 2 T more ice water if the dough will not come together. Divide the dough into 2 balls and flatten each into a 4 inch disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate at least 1 hour, or up to 2 days, before rolling.

Makes enough dough for 1 double-crust 9 inch pie.