Love Dad with Pie on Father’s Day


My husband and I always laugh because when it is Mother’s Day, he grills for me. When it is Father’s Day, he grills for him. If he wasn’t so good at making amazing smoked salmon and sausages and ribs and burgers and steaks and anything else that can be grilled, then it wouldn’t be his job! But because we love him and still want to treat him on Father’s Day, we make him his favorite dessert every year – pie. That and we are firm believers that good food is the sixth language of love around here.

Delicious Father’s Day Pies

Dads deserve the best. In addition to their favorite tools and gadgets, they deserve to be rewarded with delicious food made by the hands of those they love most. And with Father’s Day being in the midst of warm weather season, fruit pies are a must! But we realize that not everybody wants a fruity dessert, so here we have a list of some of the best pies you can make for Dad this Father’s Day.

Our Favorite Father’s Day Pie

We love freshly picked strawberries and Father’s Day happens to land during U-pick strawberry season around here. We head out early in the morning and pick as many as we can before we are bored out of our minds (we usually end up with about 5-10 lbs., depending on toddler attitudes). Then we come home and make Dad a pie.

We have grown to love the Pillsbury Fresh Strawberry Pie Recipe for the filling, but we prefer to make our own crust. Below you will find both delicious recipes, each of which were made by the hands of my talented 12 year old this year. This is an easy recipe just about anybody can make – and you don’t even have to turn on your oven!

The Crust

We melt the butter right into the pan while the oven heats up. Melt a stick of butter in the pan. Crush up the graham crackers while it melts (use your food processor or give your little ones the fun task of crushing them up in a gallon Ziploc bag with a rolling pin). Once the butter has melted, add 1/3 cup of sugar and the graham cracker crumbs to the butter and pour into a 9.5 inch pie pan. Stir it together and mash the crumb mixture into a pan to form a tasty crust.

The Heart of the Pie: The Filling

Next we make the filling based on the Pillsbury Fresh Strawberry Pie Recipe.

The ingredients you need are:

  •         6 cups of freshly cut strawberries
  •         1 cup of sugar
  •         3 tablespoons cornstarch
  •         ½ c water

(The recipe calls for food coloring but we omit it.)

Cut up the strawberries into slices, with the exception of 1 cup of berries, which you need to crush.

Put the crushed berries in a 2.5 quart saucepan and stir in the sugar and cornstarch. Cook until the mixture boils and thickens, stirring constantly. Cool about 30 minutes.

Place the remaining strawberries in the prepared crust. Pour the cooked strawberry mixture evenly over the berries, reserving a few to put over top to make it look fancy.

Just before serving the pie, sweeten it with whipped cream. Cover and refrigerate any leftovers.