Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie

Strawberry-Rhubarb is Jer's favorite pie. I'm not the pie lady though. This wonderfully sweet, amazing lady at our church is. Potlucks, holidays, family get-togethers? Grandma Lori brings the pies. End of story. As for me? I make cookies. And I dabble in other baking things. But pie? No way! Too hard! Too scary! To...crust-y. That is until Thanksgiving. Fixed on having a Gluten Free pie for my sister to eat, I dared to make my own. And GASP! It actually turned out! And it was kinda easy! I've figured since then that if I can make a GF pie crust, I can make a regular one. So I spent some time searching for a Strawberry-Rhubarb recipe and came across Smitten Kitchen's. Her recipe, paired with few tips from the Internet, yielded an incredible finished result. But then again it is strawberries and rhubarb. And really how can you go wrong with that?

DIRECTIONS:
For crust: 3 cups all purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup chilled solid vegetable shortening, cut into pieces
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
10 tablespoons (about) ice water

For filling:
3 1/2 cups 1/2-inch-thick slices trimmed rhubarb (1 1/2 pounds untrimmed)
1 16-ounce container strawberries, hulled, halved (about 3 1/2 cups)
1/2 cup (packed) golden brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons milk (for glaze)

Make crust: Combine flour, sugar and salt in processor (or using pastry cutter). Using on/off turns, cut in shortening and butter until coarse meal forms. Blend in enough ice water 2 tablespoons at a time to form moist clumps. Gather dough into ball; cut in half. Flatten each half into disk. Wrap separately in plastic; refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour.

Make filling: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Combine first 7 ingredients in large bowl. Toss gently to blend. Allow filling to sit for 3o minutes. Once juices have started to accumulate in bowl transfer to sauce pan and cook over medium heat for 10 minutes. This will allow for the filling to thicken before baking.

Assemble Pie: Roll out 1 dough disk on floured work surface to 13-inch round. Transfer to 9-inch-diameter glass pie dish [er, I used a metal one and it was just fine]. Trim excess dough, leaving 3/4-inch overhang.

Roll out second dough disk on lightly floured surface to 13-inch round. Cut into fourteen 1/2-inch-wide strips. Spoon filling into crust. Arrange 7 dough strips atop filling, spacing evenly. Form lattice by placing remaining dough strips in opposite direction atop filling. Trim ends of dough strips even with overhang of bottom crust. Fold strip ends and overhang under, pressing to seal. Crimp edges decoratively.

Brush glaze over crust. Sprinkle with course sugar. Transfer pie to baking sheet. Bake 20 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350°F. Bake pie until golden and filling thickens, about another 40 minutes.