Huckleberry Pie

This pie is a very special treat for my family. I only grow enough garden huckleberries for one or two pies a year. Plus, this pie is very rich so we would get quite fat if we ate it too often.

The huckleberries used in this pie are not the huckleberries commonly found in the Pacific Northwest of the USA, but are a member of the nightshade family and are sometimes sold as garden huckleberries. Yet most garden huckleberry seeds sold seem to produce a fruit that is impossible to eat raw and take a lot of lemon juice to neutralize its alkalinity. The variety I grow came from a friend whose family brought the seeds back from Russia and I believe they are Solanum burbankii, which is also known as Wonderberry. Solanum burbankii produces a fruit that is mild to eat when ripe and cooks up wonderfully into a pie filling that is similar to blueberries.

These garden huckleberries, or Wonderberries, are annuals that reseed very well. The fruit ripens in the late summer and can even stand a very light frost.

Garden Huckleberry Pie Recipe

1 8 oz package cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cream, whipped
1 graham cracker crust

Cream the cream cheese, powdered
sugar and vanilla together. Fold in
the whipped cream. Spread on the bottom
and the sides of the pie shell.

3 cups huckleberries
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup flour
pinch of salt
1 tblsp lemon juice

Cook the above ingredients over low heat until it
comes to a boil and thickens up. Cool and spread
over the cream cheese layer. Refrigerate.