Berrylicious Berry Trio Pie

Seems like just about everyone buys those big bags of frozen berries from Costco for smoothies.  But sometimes I would also like to do something else with them.. and the perfect thing is that you can also bake a great pie using the frozen berry trio mix.  

Of course, fresh berries would be best... if blackberries are in season, and you have someone to pick them for you! I saw a snake once, on top of a blackberry branch and that pretty much cured me of wanting to pick anymore berries myself... I know it's ridiculous, I just don't like snakes hiding out in berry bushes scaring unsuspecting cooks like me. Either you pick them for me, or I'm buying them.

The filling is yummy and thick with a natural tang from the mixture of raspberries, blueberries and blackberries. It was much thicker than the picture at the bottom of this posting leads you to believe. I took this picture after most the family had already dove into the pie and I threw one last piece on a plate to try to take it's picture on Thanksgiving Day.  Food and wine coma definitely impaired my judgement on what a good pie picture should look like.  
Please accept my apologies,  just shut your pie hole, you will like this. 

This wasn't my prettiest pie, I will admit I had trouble with it. 

I was trying to rush to make a vegan pie for my niece on Thanksgiving, so I made a different pie crust than usual.  I used the Crisco recipe (all vegetable shortening) but I found that it was very hard to get it to stay together, and my crust broke to bits once I tried to pick it up and put it on the pie.  Once your dough touches your berry filling, you are pretty much committed to continuing to put it on the pie.  While the crust did not look that great, it did taste extremely good. It's on the Crisco baking sticks package if you want to try it.  Next time I will buy the pre-made Pillsbury crust or make my own easy Basic Pie Crust recipe, or even make a cobbler or crisp with this filling.

Makes 1 double crust pie
Ingredients:

2 Pie crusts, one for the top and one for the bottom

Filling:
1/4 cup cornstarch
11/4 cup sugar
6 1/2 cups frozen berries, thawed* (retain juices)
Coarse Sugar for sprinkling on top
     *At least semi- thawed....

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Stir together the cornstarch and sugar in a large bowl, add the berries and the juices and combine well. Add to the unbaked pie shell, add cut outs to the top, brush with egg yolk, or water, and sprinkle with coarse sugar. I had Blueberry sugar (shown above) so I used that.

(You know you're in trouble when the filling oozes out before you bake it...my crust was too small and had too 

many holes in it to completely keep the filling in.  Yours should be different, but either way it tastes great!)

Put the pie dish onto of a baking sheet to catch any drips. Bake until the filling bubbles and crust is golden, about 55-60 minutes.  If needed, add foil covers to the crust edges to keep from browning too much.

Let the pie cool for about 2-3 hours.  The filling will continue to thicken somewhat as it cools, so don't panic if it looks too juicy.