Blackberry Slab Pie

Today's goals: Find and pick blackberries without being eaten alive by the blackberry vines! Make pie during nap time.

Tonight's dinner menu: Ravioli with Arugula and Olives, Blackberry Slab Pie with Vanilla Ice Cream, Red Wine

Simply stated, blackberries are amazing! Their enormous vines with their scarily creepy thorns that seem to lunge for your arms and hands are less so. But, in Seattle we learn to put up with the scary vines that invade our yards and strangle our trees so we can indulge a few weeks every summer on the delicious little delicate berries.

We've been driving around the neighborhood seeking out blackberries a few days out of the last few weeks and when we pick enough, I've made this yummy little rustic slab pie as our reward. The pie crust is sugar-sparkled and pinched around the heap of fresh, gorgeous blackberries that are piled in its center. It's quite delicious and very easy to assemble and bake during nap time. Topped with a generous scoop of French Vanilla ice cream, it makes a perfect dessert!

Blackberry Slab Pie minimally adapted from babble.com Ingredients: 3-4 cups blackberries Pie crust (I buy them at Trader Joe's where they are sold in the freezer section and come in a circle wrapped in wax paper.) 3 tablespoons butter 1 egg white 1/8 - 1/4 cup of sugar, depends on how sparkly/sugary you like it

Directions: Wash the berries and let dry in a strainer. Place the round of pie dough on a parchment lined baking sheet. Heap the berries into a mound right in the center of the pie dough. Carefully fold the edges of the pie dough around the berries, overlapping and pinching it together to keep the edges in place. It will resemble a King Cake shape for those of you familiar with the Mardi Gras dessert.

Melt the butter and drizzle half of it over the berries. Whisk the egg white into the remaining butter. With a basting brush, spread the butter/egg white mixture all over the edges of the pie crust, then sprinkle with sugar.

Bake in an oven preheated to 425 degrees for 10 minutes, then lower the temperature to 400 degrees and bake for an additional 5-10 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve with giant scoops of vanilla ice cream.