Tiny Urban Kitchen

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Fresh Strawberry Pie with Sweet Balsamic Reduction + Giveaway!

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We’ll take a brief break from the Eating Out in New York (again) Series for a little Friday dessert. 🙂

Oh tiny kitchen, why can’t you fit everything?

One negative aspect of having a tiny kitchen is that you can’t stock up on food. Lack of storage space basically forces me to pay premium prices for smaller packaging. I don’t have a pantry. Instead, my snacks are stuffed in random kitchen cabinets.  In general, I try not to buy things in bulk.

Imagine my utter shock when I got a call from the front desk (at 8AM no less!) telling me to come down immediately to pick up a very perishable large shipment.

Bleary-eyed and hardly coherent (yes, she had awaken me from my slumber, after all), I went downstairs and brought the box upstairs. When I opened it I nearly gasped.

There were 8 twelve-ounce cartons of strawberries.

I was thrilled but at the same time a bit anxious as I glanced at my tiny kitchen.

Oh dear.

What was I going to do?

I did try eating some of them plain, and they were delicious. However, strawberries are very, very perishable items and they really don’t last long.  I knew there was no way I could eat all the berries. Furthermore, I felt like my refrigerator had been hijacked, stuffed to the brim with these berries.

Then Bryan, the non-cook who saves the day in the most surprising ways sometimes, suggested that I make “sugar strawberries.” Apparently, his mom used to make it all the time when he was a kid, and he actually enjoyed eating them.

Happy to find a way to store my strawberries somewhere else other than the refrigerator, I decided to make sugar-macerated strawberries and then use them to make a fresh strawberry pie that would totally remind me of summer.

Sugar Strawberries
2 lbs strawberries, stemmed and sliced
1/2 cup sugar
1 T balsamic vinegar

Combine strawberries and sugar in a large bowl and mix well. Let sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes. Liquid will come out of the strawberries. Using a sieve or colander, drain the strawberries. Take the drained liquid and combine with balsamic vinegar. Bring to a boil in a saucepan and cook until the liquid has reduced by at least 1/2 and has reached the consistency of syrup. Cool and set aside.

If you have a ton of strawberries, you can freeze the sugar strawberry base for future use for making strawberry shortcake, pies, or other desserts! They freeze really well!

Making the Pie . . .
Making the pie is easy, as this is a no-bake pie and can really come together in minutes as long as you have a crust ready to go. In this case, I defrosted one of my larger bags of frozen macerated strawberries in order to make the pie.

The pie crust
If you don’t have time to bake your own crust, you can always buy a pre-baked one in the store. Alternatively, if you make your own, you will need to pre-bake it, since this is a no-bake pie. I used this great recipe (you can see my step by step pictures here).

When baking the crust, be sure to weigh down the empty pie crust with something heavy (e.g., dried beans, pie weights). Otherwise, your crust will shrink (like mine did – oops!!).

Once the pie crust is ready, the rest is super super easy. Heck there’s really not an exact recipe once you have the crust. I’ll try to write one anyway, but really, the amounts are very very flexible.

Fresh Strawberry Pie with Sweet Balsamic Reduction

~ 1 lb sugar macerated strawberries 
8-12 oz Greek strained yogurt
pre-baked pie crust

Pre–bake a pie crust (check out this excellent tutorial). Spread the Greek strained yogurt on the bottom layer of the pie crust. Top with sugar macerated strawberries. Finally, drizzle with the balsamic-strawberry reduction.

Serve!

Yumm . . . this fresh pie tastes so much like summer. It’s absolutely delicious.

I personally love how the thick, creamy yogurt, which is just a bit tart, balances out the fresh and bright tasting strawberries. The deep balsamic sugar sauce adds just enough sweetness to round the entire dessert out.

Here’s looking forward to summer really really soon . . .

Giveaway!

California Giant Berry Farm is the company that kindly sent me the strawberries. They currently have a website called Put Some Spring Into Your Step with creative tips on how you can use berries. One cool tip I liked was to freeze strawberries and using them as ice cubes in lemonade. Hee hee, maybe I could even used my frozen sugar-macerated strawberries!

In the spirit of promoting good health through food and exercise, California Giant Berry Farm has generously offered to give away the following to ONE lucky winner:

1) One shipment of fresh berries and
2) a $25 gift certificate to Academy.com (they sell sports equipment)

In order to enter, please comment below and tell me your favorite way to enjoy berries in the summer! For second and third chances to enter, please tweet and/or write about the promotion on facebook. You must link back to this post. For example:

Giveaway! Win a shipment of fresh berries plus $25 gift card to academy.com @tinyurbankitchn http://bit.ly/jYnqZ1

For tweets, please mention @tinyurbankitchn. For facebook entries, please mention @Tiny Urban Kitchen.

Giveaway ends next Wednesday, June 1 at Midnight EST.

Good luck!

Disclaimer:
Time to time I receive free products, meals, etc. as a food blogger. I do not receive any payment for blog posts/reviews nor am I required to write a post when I receive free products, meals, etc. The views expressed in this post are completely my own. The strawberries and the giveaway are paid for by California Giant Berry Farm. The balsamic vinegar was provided for free by Star Fine Foods.

©2009-2014 Tiny Urban Kitchen
All Rights Reserved

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Comments

  2. Gracie says

    I love berries and have many fabulous ways of eating them. however, I have to say, my favorite as well as the Boyfriend’s is freshed dipped in homemade whipped cream. D’lish!

  3. Elana says

    While I love a good berry-rhubarb pie and take my excess berries and make berry jam (or berry-rhubarb) jam and can them (canned jams make great gifts!) my absolute favorite way to enjoy them is just putting them in a bowl with a little cream and sugar.  This is the way my grandmother used to serve us berries.  Sometimes, she’d put a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top!

  6. Shani says

    I’m envious of your shipment! 

    Int he summer we love to drive up to Verrill Farm in Concord, buy a flat or two of strawberries, and make something very similar to your recipe for a strawberry rhubarb crisp. This year, I am planning on making jam as well!

  12. Alvina says

    I enjoy my berries in cocktails.  haha.  Also in desserts!  I’m not a huge fan of eating them plain, especially the non-strawberry berries since they can be rather tart.

  13. Daisy says

    that is such a cute/funny photo of you with all the berries! As a kid we always ate berries n cream, sprinkled with sugar. So instead of cereal and milk it was raspberries and cream, blueberries and cream. I know, so healthy to eat a bowl of cream 😉

  16. Beata says

    i like eating berries straight when they’re perfectly fresh and ripe. 🙂 it always seems like kind of a waste to cook or bake them, though i’ve done that too….

  17. Meister @ The Nervous Cook says

    That pie is absolutely stunning! Makes me wish I baked more often…

    I love using strawberries in salads, and to add a little sweet kick to savory dishes. Sometimes I top grilled scallops with them; I’ve also made a sweet-and-spicy guacamole with them, which was awesome! 

  32. Jessica says

    Strawberry shortcaaaaaake! I just made loads with my sister a week or so ago, and still want more. And sometimes I just dunk them in my tub ‘o Nutella for a snack. 

  33. dianna says

    this post has me so excited for the upcoming berry season! YUM! i’ve already started seeing rainier cherries at my  local farmer’s market although they’re not quite as sweet as they could be yet. my favorite way to eat berries is to toss them lightly in a simple syrup and serve them over a freshly made crepe.

  35. Tracie says

    I love them plain.  Or with melted chocolate!  no, wait, as pie!  So hard to choose!
    btw, Smitten Kitchen has an awesome strawberry shortcake recipe.  I highly recommend it for your sugar strawberries!

  40. Julia E says

    This post made me smile. I lived next to a strawberry field for a period growing up, and I used to sneak over and steal as many berries as i could hold in my shirt. I’d fold it up and try to climb back over the fence. The owners always knew what I was doing but never stopped me! 🙂 I love strawberry-balsamic ice cream in summer, but to be honest, I’m a bit boring. I usually just eat strawberries with a bit of sugar (usually some nice vanilla sugar) and some cream or milk. There’s nothing more satisfying as a summer dessert, but I am going to try this pie! Thanks.

  61. Alisa says

    Strawberries to start the day. I’d probably bake some pie, make some smoothies and invite friends over for a strawberry party 🙂 Your pie really looks delicious and I love that you used yogurt for this.

  64. Jackie says

    Haha, Jen! Your face in that photo! Oh Lord, that’s hilarious… 😀 But wow, what a beautiful pie! I’m going to have to come back to Boston to visit – let me know next time you get a big shipment of strawberries, eh? 😉

    Jax x

  67. Doris Murai says

    I love strawberry pie – your recipe looks easy and delicious!  We mainly use the strawberries for strawberry shortcake – frequently!

  71. Stan90720 says

    Hi, Tiny Urban Chef:

    When we first moved to where we are in 1980, there were many strawberry fields within stone throw distance.  I used to buy strawberry by cases.  They were HUGE and Sweet.  There was no way we could eat them in a single day. Therefore, Bryan’s Mom invented Sugar Strawberry so that we could keep them and mixed with cold cereals for breakfasts. 

    Now all the strawberr farms have become “buildings”.  We miss them.

    Old Car 

  73. Nicolle says

    I love eating the berries plain.  It used to be a tradition that after my mom bought berries the four of us kids would count all the berries and divide them among us.  =) 

  79. talida says

    Ah, pie weights! If you use a substitute like beans or rice, definitely use parchment paper or foil before you plop them into your dough! Unless you like spending countless hours picking out beans 🙂

    Strawberry ice cream, strawberry tarts, jam.. they’re all delicious, and I also just love eating them by themselves!

  88. Apron Appeal says

    When I don’t have cupboard space, I stash food in any crevice I can find. I’ve been known to put my bed up on risers just so I could fit 5 gal. buckets under it. I have no IDEA how to grocery shop without stocking up. Partially because I hate to grocery shop and go as infrequently as I can get away with.

  89. shannon says

    oh my gosh, i love the balsamic in this!!  definitely going to make it this year 🙂  my favorite way to use berries?  probably just eat them straight up or in a fruit salad.  i try to save them to play, but tend to eat too many en route!

  95. heather says

    Balsamic and fresh strawberries is a perennial favorite, but if I had my way, I’d slice a big bowl of fresh berries and eat as is. Maybe a spoon of lightly sweetened ricotta. 

    Cheers,

    *Heather*

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