Wheatless, Sugarless Blueberry Pie

This doesn’t look very good but it was surprisingly yummy — not I’m-in-heaven yummy, but thank-goodness-here’s-an-allergy-free-recipe-I-can-actually-eat-and-enjoy yummy. The pastry is very difficult to work with, but with a little work and a few practice sessions, it should be better than what I have here:).

For the crust:

2 cups oat flour
1 cup barley blour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening or coconut oil
8 tablespoons ice water (I used more than that to make the dough come together)
2 tablespoons safflower oil

Combine flours and salt in a large bowl. Cut in shortening using 2 knives or a pastry cutter/blender. Add 2 tablespoons ice water. Work in using a fork or the pastry cutter. Keep adding water, a couple of tablespoons at a time, until pastry comes together. As the author notes, “this dough will never be completely combined like cake batter”. It is *not* like regular pie crust at all and can be frustrating, so keep reminding yourself to be patient. What I finally did was combine it all in a plastic ziploc bag, rolled it into a ball while it was in the bag, and refrigerated it. When it was semi-firm, I put it between wax paper sheets and rolled it a little at a time. If it crumbles, take a piece off the edge and patch it over the crack. Roll again. Keep doing this. If pastry gets too warm, return to the fridge for a bit. It takes a lot of work, but hang in there, because it *will* eventually look like some sort of pie crust. The two wax paper sheets help to keep it intact, well, as intact as is possible. When you’ve rolled it enough to fit the pie pan, take one sheet off, flip onto the pie, then peel off top sheet. If you have to patch a lot, that’s okay. You’re probably not going to serve it to royalty so you can relax.

Whoops, I almost forgot about the filling:

I basically took a bag of frozen wild blueberries, mixed it with some honey and lemon juice, then added those mini-tapioca balls (I think mine were the “instant” kind, though of course there’s nothing instant about them. Oh, I did soak the tapioca balls in some water for about 10 minutes before adding them in, so they were kinda swelled up and softened. You kinda have to go by feel on how much tapioca to use, I suppose 1/3-1/2 cup or so will be fine for a 9-inch pie, but it also depends on how much berries you’ve got. The berry filling was based on a cherry filling in the book, but I had to make adjustments.

The pie crust recipe is from The Whole Foods Allergy Cookbook.