Happy Meatless Monday! I'm so excited to start Vegan MoFo today, which means Vegan Month of Food. As a participant, I've agreed to write at least 20 blog posts during the month of October. I'm ready for the challenge, and actually have a pocket full of posts already written. Most of them are recipes, while a few are Deep Vegan Thoughts or Helpful Vegan Tips. This project is really inspiring to me, and I hope that having easy access to not only my blog, but so many other vegan blogs in one place will inspire you too. Check out the Vegan MoFo site for more details and a complete list of bloggers, and come back here every day to see what new wonderfulness I have for you. Now let's start this off with some dessert! xoxo Kim
My mother was a wonderful cook. She could make just about anything, and she was even willing to expand her meat-and-potaoes repertoire to please my sister and me when we suddenly announced one day that we were vegetarians. The only thing I ever remember her having trouble with was apple pie. For some reason she never quite nailed it, or at least that's what she thought, so I never bothered to have her show me how to make it. I've been convinced for most of my life that our family just doesn't have the "pie gene." But maybe I was wrong.
We have an amazing little apple tree in our yard that's given us a huge crop of sweet, crisp apples this year. I'm drying a lot of them, and making applesauce to freeze too, but the call of the Apple Pie was just too strong to ignore. Surely something that's "easy as pie" should be, well, easy. So I gave it a try, and everyone in feeding distance is pleased. If you have any sort of pie-o-phobia, rest assured that this one is really truly easy.
Easy Vegan Apple Pie
Crust
1/2 cup (1 stick) vegan butter, like Earth Balance
1/2 cup nut milk or water
2 cups brown rice flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Melt the butter in a saucepan. Remove from heat, stir in all other crust ingredients, and pat into an oiled pie pan. (Easy so far, right?)
Filling
Preheat oven to 350º
About 6 cups apples, cored and sliced, but not peeled
1/4 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup brown rice flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
Toss filling ingredients together in a bowl, and pour into unbaked crust.
Bake at 350º for 30 minutes. Remove from oven, and add the topping (below).
Topping
Make this while your pie is baking for the first 30 minutes.
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) vegan butter
1/2 cup organic brown sugar
1/2 cup brown rice flour - (rolled oats, buzzed up in the food processor)
1 tsp cinnamon
Mix topping ingredients together with a fork and your fingers.
Sprinkle on top of your pie after it's baked for the first 30 minutes.
Bake 30 minutes more.
That's it. Pie really is easy. Yay!
