Need more space in the oven this Thanksgiving? Try serving this raw apple pie for dessert, perfect for your vegetarian, vegan and raw foods guests, and especially for your over-booked oven.
A raw foods enthusiast, Marie Delcioppo loves challenging people to the raw foods diet by giving them a dessert first, claiming “It’s pie, how bad could it be?” For this dish, she combined apples with nuts, dates, blueberries, coconut and other spices to create a nutrient packed, easy-to-make dessert.
Growing up in a big Italian family, Ms. Delcioppo remembers sitting in the kitchen and watching her father create exquisite meals from scratch. However, when Ms. Delcioppo was older, she was intimidated by cooking, believing that she could never live up to her father’s expert skills in the kitchen.
When she finally did start cooking, she says, “I did not have high hopes for myself. I was petrified.” She remembers she could “barely cut an onion.” But her childhood experiences of watching her father create meals from basic ingredients inspired her to embark on the raw foods diet. She was happy to find that it was one of the easiest diets to follow, as no cooking is involved.
To create her crisp, fresh apple pie, you will need a food processor, not an oven. To create the crust, combine pecans, dates and shredded coconut. For apples, she prefers Honey Crisp. The filling is a mash of apples, blueberries and chia seeds, which help create the traditional pie filling texture. Top it off with more apples, sliced paper-thin — if you don’t have the knife-skills use a food processor or mandoline slicer. Top it off with a walnut-and-date crumble.
The pie has a different consistency than a traditional cooked pie, but your guests will be impressed by the refreshing taste after a heavy meal.
“It’s incredibly fresh,” says Ms. Delcioppo. “You can really taste the flavors.”
Crisp Raw Apple Pie: Instead of an oven, use a food processor to create this crisp, fresh apple pie. It was created for raw-food dieters, but it also gives home cooks a fast and refreshing dessert option that takes a fraction of the time of a traditional fruit pie.