Strawberry pie

I woke up this morning thinking, this is it. the pinnacle of my pie-making career is today: strawberry pie. Homemade chocolate cookies - ground into a double chocolate cookie crust. 6 cups of strawberries. 3 tablespoons of Grand Marinier. 2 tablespoons of my best balsamic vinegar. Sugar, corn starch, orange zest. What's not to like?

I'll tell you what is not to like - is how long this stupid pie took. Let me tell you, cinnamon rolls look like a box cake in comparison. I started at 9:30 and give or take some breaks for the baby - including a couple hours to get to and from Ford's PT- I did not finish until 6:00pm. Now I know I am not the best cook. I am not fast. I am not organized. and I certainly don't read directions well, but this just took way too long for what I got.

Here is my day in a nutshell. I will give it to you play by play because there is nothing else to discuss other than pie:

First, it calls for a chocolate cookie crust. No problem, except that you have to make the chocolate cookies. I planned on starting that last night, but found weavels in the new bag of flour.

So after my trip to the store this morning, I make dough, then I start hulling and separating strawberries. Firm/small ones for the pie, smooshy ones for the glaze, mediocre ones to be frozen. Bake cookies. Allow cookies to dry out for a few hours. Go to therapy. Start making glaze. (glaze is awesome) Keep hulling and sorting strawberries. Cool glaze so it doesn't melt the strawberries. Crap, the refrigerator is taking too long and the pie needs 2 hours to cool before serving. Put it in the freezer. 15 minutes later- check the glaze. Find pool of sticky red strawberry goo all over the bottom of freezer. kick ass.

Well...after cleaning goo off of Michael's fish, the ice, bananas, and some mango pulp... and after scooping some carefully back into the bowl, the pie is finally complete. just in time to make dinner and clean up for our LOST watchers who are coming over. I praise God for a family that is satisfied with cereal for dinner.

And I didn't even take a picture of the finished product.