apple crumble

April 22nd, 2010

So on with another dessert — a quick-to-make and easy-to-adapt recipe that is one of our favorites. I first made this recipe two summers ago inspired by something I found on goneraw.com (haven’t been able to find this one on there since, so no link, sorry). I used fresh, local peaches with the same crumble topping and oh my GOSH was it delicious! I have since made it with berries, cherries, pears, apples and plums. All have been scrumptious, but peach and cherry vie for first place for me personally. The cherry blossom petals are snowing my backyard, which means it’s not too long til cherry picking time! Yay spring!

Another beautiful quality of this dish, aside from versatility and quick prep, is that it can be made last minute with things I tend to have on hand. And honestly — why limit it to a dessert — it makes a very fine breakfast, lunch or snack as well. Not to mention that having a jar of both parts of the recipe (fruit as well as crumble topping) means you can add a new dimension to banana ice cream, chocolate mousse, banana pudding and more.

Oh, and did I mention that you can also make it ahead of time, keeping the crumble separate from the fruit until ready to serve. This makes it a great holiday dish when you have other things to do last minute besides worry about dessert. Seriously, what more could you want from a delicious dish!? I had stored some apple filling in a small metal tiffin, so I dumped this out into a plate and it held it’s shape. So I put crumb topping around it instead of on top for the picture. It’s much prettier with some sort of berry or cherry, but hey, looks aren’t everything, right?

Better than Betty’s Apple Crumble

Crumb mixture:

  • 2 cups walnuts
  • 2 cups pecans
  • 1 cup dates
  • 2 tsp vanilla
  • 1 Tbs honey
  • cinnamon to taste
  • pinch salt
  1. Pulse nuts in food processor until smallish — if you take it down to a flour at this stage your crumble will have a different, more cohesive, dough like texture, less crumbly. Not a bad thing, still delicious, just a different feel.
  2. Add remaining ingredients and process just until the dates are broken down. Pour out into a bowl or storage container if you aren’t serving immediately.  I don’t bother cleaning out the food processor bowl, as this comes out without leaving much residue, so on to the fruit without further ado.

Apple delight:

  • 4 lbs apples, cored
  • 1/2 cup raisins
  • 1 Tbs honey
  • cinnamon to taste
  • 1/2 banana
  1. I chopped my apples into 1 inch cubes or so. Well, actually, I quartered the apples (a mixture of green, braeburn and pink lady) and tossed all but 3 of them into the processor. And couldn’t get my Cuisinart to process them — the chunks were too big, and the blade just couldn’t get to most of them. So, I dumped out half and cut it all into smaller pieces and was able to get it to process.
  2. After the apples were almost pureed, I put in the rest of the ingredients. I added the half banana because it seemed like it needed something to give it a bit of creaminess as well as sweetness to balance the tartness of the green apples I used. I would consider adding a whole banana next time, but this one was really ripe, thus intensely flavored, and I didn’t want to taste banana when I ate it.
  3. Once the puree was all set, I scraped that out into a bowl and added small pieces of the 3 remaining apples to the processor. I pulsed until these were what looked like a good size (small enough to chew politely but big enough to give my teeth something to do) and then mixed them into the puree.
  4. The nuts will get soggy if you mix this ahead of time, so I like to serve it in two bowl and let people take the amount of crumble they want right at the table.

I think you can easily make this recipe without the honey, using whole food sweeteners like the dates, raisins and bananas. The original recipe called for a tablespoon of coconut oil in the fruit mixture, but I tend to leave that out. I bet coconut butter would also  be delicious — especially if you use mango, papaya, pineapple, strawberry or a combination of those for the fruit.

I also occasionally add a couple tablespoons of hemp, chia or ground flax to the crumble once it’s been processed to boost the nutrition. I’ve been adding hemp seeds to guacamole — Dante and Lucia haven’t noticed and I feel good knowing I’m getting lots of healthy fats, vitamins and minerals, and protein into something they love to eat. Make sure you have enough dates or dried fruit going on in the crumble to absorb these extra dry ingredients if you choose to do so.

We use organic apples, so I just wash them and leave the skins on — if you haven’t had a chance to see the Shopper’s Guide to Pesticide to know which fruits and vegetables contain high levels of pesticide residue even after washing, head on over to our post about limiting chemicals in your home.

Happy crumbling!

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banana cream pie

April 17th, 2010

It’s dessert week for our workshop, and I’m kicking it off with Alissa Cohen’s recipe for Ann Wigmore’s Banana Cream Pie. I forgot to take pics before we served the pie, so you’ll just have to fill in the rest with your imagination.

Ann Wigmore’s Banana Cream Pie (from Alissa Cohen)

Crust:

  • 1/2 cup pecans
  • 2 cups dates, pitted and soaked
  • 1 1/2 cup dried coconut
  • 1 tsp vanilla

Filling:

  • 4-5 bananas
  • 1 cup shredded coconut
  • 1/2 cup apple juice
  • 2 tsp tahini
  • 2 tsp honey
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  1. Grind pecans in food processor til fine.
  2. Add dates and blend til creamy. I think the dough came out too wet, and would probably not soak the dates next time around.
  3. Add remaining crust ingredients, and blend well. Sabrina had made this for raw potluck once, and recommended cutting the coconut to a scant cup. Since I’m not a coconut lover, I took this advice. Also, I’m reading David Wolfe’s Superfoods, and in the chapter about Maca he recommends using it to help bind crusts made from dried fruit and nuts, so I put 2 Tbs of maca into the crust as well.
  4. Pour into pie place or springform tart pan and chill while you make the filling.
  5. Add 4 bananas and remaining filling ingredients to food processor and process. I used an apple instead of the 1/2 cup apple juice. I also added a 1 Tbs of flax meal, and 1 Tbs of psyllium husk because I didn’t have a lot of time to chill the pie and wanted to make sure it was firm.
  6. Pour filling into a bowl, and cut remaining banana and stir. Pour filling into crust and chill in fridge.
  7. Just before serving, decorate the top with extra banana slices, cacao nibs, various seeds, berries, dried fruit, etc.

I took this pie to a family birthday party so I could have a sweet treat, but surprisingly many of the other guests tried it. None was left on the plates, except a particularly thick portion of crust. My kids liked it, but preferred the filling, so I will probably just make banana pudding for them in the future and save the pie for something special. Easy peasy wholesome dessert treat! One half went at the party, and my family gobbled the rest of it for breakfast the following day. Mmmmm pie for breakfast!

Maca is a root vegetable found high in the Andes of Peru. Consumption of the maca root powder is shown to strengthen the immune system, increase energy, and  improve memory, endurance and libido. It is also an adaptogen, helping to relieve stress and depression. It has a malty flavor, and we like it in nut milk shakes with cacao. YUM!

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ice cream bonanza

March 31st, 2010

With the warmer weather of the past couple of weeks, we’ve been wanting ice cream!  Dante led the way, putting a number of bananas in the freezer. We learned how to split a banana into 3 thin sections using only your fingers (cool trick, we’ll make a video soon) so that they freeze faster. If you plan ahead and keep frozen bananas on hand, you can have delicious ice cream in minutes!

Our basic process involves putting about 3-4 frozen bananas in the food processor and whizzing them up. If they have been frozen for more than an hour or so, you may need to either wait a few minutes for them to soften or add one room temp banana to the processor and whiz again to achieve a soft-serve ice cream consistency.

This creates a great banana ice cream as it is, but we have started adding things both to the processor and as toppings to enhance this tasty treat! We have added cacao powder to the processor to make a chocolate ice cream, and vanilla by adding vanilla extract. We make a chocolate chip nut butter swirl by drizzling nut butter  onto the banana ice cream and topping that with cacao nibs. Other add-ins we like are coconut flakes, nuts, seeds, berries, and other fruit.

We make a sorbet by putting a bag of frozen berries into the food processor and whirring it up into sweet, frozen goodness. Some people add dates or honey as well, but we like it without this and consume enough sweet stuff elsewhere that we leave it out. I made a version of this with raspberries and blueberries for Dante last weekend when he was feeling poorly, but he didn’t finish it all. Later in the day, he requested banana ice cream, so I pulled the melted sorbet from the fridge and poured it into the food processor bowl with the already-whizzed bananas and Voila! A beautiful, ruby-red berry ice cream! I topped it with some frozen berries and chia seeds and served (it’s the pic at the top).

When we lived in Boston, we frequented J.P. Licks ice cream shops and one of Luke’s favorites there was Maple Butter Walnut. So we took the basic banana ice cream, and drizzled maple syrup over it and tossed in some chopped walnuts. Lucia wanted chocolate chip ice cream, so we took the plain banana soft serve and put it in a bowl with cacao nibs for her. Take a gander at this shot of goodness — this was breakfast a couple of weeks ago!

Dante didn’t want either of those variations, so he left his portion of the banana ice cream in the food processor and added some frozen raspberries. He used a slice of banana and more frozen raspberries to make a flower on top of his raspbanana ice dream! The boy loves to garnish…

If you haven’t tried this before, pop some bananas onto a cookie sheet or plate in the freezer with enough space between them that they don’t overlap much. Once frozen, you can store them in a zip lock freezer bag to keep them from getting freezer burn. We also make banana pops — cut the bananas in half, insert a popsicle stick up and wrap them in foil or put them on a cookie sheet until frozen and again, store in a freezer bag or other airtight container. These are one of our favorite treats for a hot day!

What’s your favorite cool snack for the dog days of summer?

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