Blueberry pie with almond crumble topping

The other day at the grocery store they had gigantic tubs of blueberries on sale. And despite being up to my eyeballs with tiling the master bedroom, I knew what I had to do. So I grabbed two of the gigantic tubs of blueberries and some almond paste (and a store-bought pie crust, because, you know, I'm in the middle of the world's largest tiling project), and then I skipped all the way home.

I mixed up a batch of thin-set for the tile, and while waiting for it to sit for 10 minutes, I measured out the ingredients for the filling, which includes lots of these bad boys.



7 cups to be exact. (or 32 oz frozen blueberries, not thawed)

In addition to those blue beauties, the filling requires the following:
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
1/4 cup corn starch
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

I then carried the bucket of thin-set to my mom, plopped some on the floor for her to spread, buttered the backs of three tiles for her, and then ran back to the kitchen to measure the ingredients for the topping:

2/3 cup unbleached flower
7 oz almond paste broken into pieces
1/4 cup unsalted butter cut into 1/2" cubes
1/2 teaspoon salt

I ran in and buttered the backs of three more tiles and plopped down some more thin-set, and then ran back to the stove.

In a heavy large saucepan, I stirred together the sugar and corn starch and then added the blueberries and lemon juice.



And then I cooked them over medium heat, stirring frequently, until they got happy (as determined by being in a thick and bubbly state, which takes about 10-13 minutes). Don't they look happy? Then they went into the fridge for about an hour to cool.



While the blueberry filling was cooling, I went back to helping my poor mom tile my floor. Once I caught up with her, I ran back out to prepare the topping by placing the topping ingredients into a food processor until they formed small clumps. And I started to preheat the oven to 400F.

I put my sad little store-bought pie crust into the pie plate. And then I filled it with happiness.



And then I topped it with more happiness.



And then I put it in the oven and went back to tiling and promptly forgot about it. So the top got a teeny tiny bit darker than I'm willing to show, but that didn't stop any of us from fighting over the last piece (the husband still owes my mom something in trade for it!).



If you don't want to make the pie while trying to lay tile, you can check out the real recipe here courtesy of Bon Appetit July 2007.