Apple Pie?

Part of staying in shape is determined by what you put in your body.  Luckily my wife makes sure I eat well.  I'll be posting some of the great food that she (often times we or I - I usually make the unhealthy stuff) prepare.  

A little background on our eating habits.

We've tried out being vegetarian and vegan for periods of time but when it comes down to it we love food, all sorts!  But, this has not kept us from eating healthy. In fact we have just added raw foodist recipes to our plethora of recipes.  It's quite fun and different to not have to cook.  The idea behind eating raw is that you loose no nutrients from your food through unnecessary cooking.  The food can't reach over 120 degrees.  A lot of the what we "eat" is not eaten but drunk because it is either juice or a smoothie.  There are though tons of good recipes for main dishes, snacks, and desserts!

This recipe comes out of "Raw Food: A Complete Guide for Ever Meal of the Day" by Erica Pamcrantz and Imela Lilja. You can find the book on Amazon.

There were three parts to this Apple Pie: the crust, filling, and garnish. The ingredients are thus.

Crust:

1 3/4 cups almonds

1 tbsp canola oil or almond oil

5 fresh dates

pinch of nutmeg

2 teaspoons cinnamon

pinch of salt

1 tablespoon honey

Filling:

1 or 2 apples (we used 2)

1 banana

2 dates

1 tsp cinnamon

Garnish:

2 or 3 apples, sliced (we used 3)

Cinnamon to taste

Instructions:

1. Finely chop the nuts in a food processor. 

2. Add the oil, dates, spices and salt. Mix

3. Add the honey, and mix to for a dough.

4. Spread the dough out on the bottom of a pie dish.

5. Thoroughly blend the filling ingredients in a food processor , and place inside the pie.

6. Garnish with sliced apples. sprinkle cinnamon on top.

We used our blender for most of the food processing since we don't have a food processor and it turned out great! I usually don't take my own opinion to know if food is good or not.  I need to hear it from someone else or better yet see in their actions that the food is good (they eat a lot of it).  Our best critics are our kids.  If they're eating it, it must be good (besides the sticks and every other thing our one-year-old tries to put in his mouth)!  The pie was a hit and did not last long.  We also made a cream to put on top from the same recipe book.  Here's how it looked (cream excluded).

No the post is not over yet.  I have to connect this to cycling besides just being healthy.  Luckily there was some left overs because this hit the spot after my ride the next morning.  Climbing +1,500 ft and Apple Pie = A happy Andrew!