Mom's Blue Ribbon French Glaze Strawberry Pie

This strawberry pie is special. It's not your average grocery store or bakery pie.  It's refreshing, vibrant, and delicious.  It's my favorite desert, which says a lot growing up with a baker who makes 8 pies for Thanksgiving, never mind her cakes or cherry cream cheesecake.

For years my mother, Jeanine Bass, submitted her strawberry pie into the Orange County Fair.  Every year she won a blue ribbon and usually the best in category.   At the fair, most pies would be on display missing a small sliver that was tasted for judging.  That wasn't true of my mom's strawberry pie. They were half eaten, the judges just couldn't stop with a little taste! One year, our lives got more complicated with kids and activities so she wasn't able to submit a pie to the fair. That year no blue ribbons were awarded to the fruit pies... everyone missed her amazing strawberry pie.

One of my childhood favorite memories of my mother baking her pies was hoping that she didn't use all of the glaze. If we were good and helped her in the kitchen making the crust or stacking the berries she would give us a bowl of fresh strawberries and the left over glaze to dip them into.

Grammy's Pie Crust
Makes 1 covered pie or two single pies.

INGREDIENTS
3 cup flour
1 tsp. salt
1 cup shortening
3/4 cup warm water

Spinachless Spinach Dip

Ever tried Knorr's Spinach Dip? It's delicious!  But I'm not a big fan of spinach, I used to spend 20 minutes defrosting the spinach and chopping it finer and finer, and then I'd only put in half of the spinach.  Then a couple times later I only used a quarter of the spinach. Then I realized, why even add spinach?  Since then I've never gone back!  And the amazing part is I get much more compliments with my adaptation.

My spinachless spinach dip is made from a double batch of Knorr's basic recipe with extra scallions (green onions) and water chestnuts. I also use less mayo mainly because I don't like mayonnaise.  If you like it you can double it following the ratios of Knorr's original recipe.

Makes about 6-7 cups.

INGREDIENTS

2 packages Knorr Vegetable recipe mix
2 16oz sour cream
1 cup mayo
3 8oz cans water chestnuts, drained and chopped
3 bunches of scallions (green onions), chopped
1 large bread bowl, hollowed out
1 french bread loaf, cubed

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Place dip into bread bowl.
3. Chill at least 2 hours.
4. Serve with cubed bread or sour cream and onion chips (Lays with ridges taste great and are thick enough to handle this chunky dip).

Baba's Clam Dip

For all of our family BBQs we'd always ask my Baba (grandmother) if she was bringing her clam dip.  My mom never made it much, it was something special Baba did.  The problem was, she would only bring a batch or maybe 2.  With a family of 5 and parties of at least 10 people 2 batches were never enough. Finally my mom and I were able to get the recipe. While its one of our favorites, we don't always make this dip for our family gatherings, it still is a special item for special days, usually for Mother's Day, Father's Day or the Superbowl.

Makes about 1 cups. For parties, I recommend making 4 to 6 times the recipe.

INGREDIENTS

1 8oz box of cream cheese at room temperature
1 can minced clams
2 T mayonnaise
1 T lemon juice
1/2 t sugar
1/2 t Tabasco sauce

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Mix all ingredients together.
2. Chill at least 2 hours.
3. Serve with vegetables or sour cream and onion chips (Lays with ridges taste the best with the dip!).