It's Apple Pie Time...

Just when you thought you were free from the bondage of summer's cool ice creamy treats, you get hit with Autumnal deliciousness.  It starts with cinnamon and pumpkin scented candles, and air fresheners arriving in the stores, followed by candy corn and pallet loads of "fun size" candy bars for Halloween, and then WHAM! apples are coming out of your ears and really, what else can you do besides make pies?

Personally, I was left with a half bushel or so of apples from Jacques Orchards after the Hemlock Sawdust Days Dash 5k on Sunday.  An added benefit of being race coordinator?  Scoring all the leftover goodies from the food tables when all is said and done. What am I to do with all these apples though?

PIE!  Well...first I made an apple crisp to take over to the in-law's family luncheon on Sunday afternoon...but I'm sensing serious pie opportunity later this week.  Unfortunately, pie doesn't really fit on the spectrum of "health foods"--or does it?

Despite the fanciful nature of pie and its prominent placement on the Thanksgiving table each year, it is really a simple dish--flour, sugar, butter, fruit, spices, and maybe a bit of water.  While the ingredients are au naturel, the ratio of sugar and butter to fruit and spices is likely way off in Grandma's famous apple pie (with melted Wisconsin cheddar?) leading to a calorie-laden sweet treat, best reserved for the holidays.

However, as I've continually said--you have to eat things while they're in season.  This is when apples are at their best in Michigan, so holiday be damned, it's time for pie!  But in the interest of health, how could be lighten it up a bit?

Some thoughts--which I will experiment with later this week and let you know the results of next time:

1. Ditch the pie and make a "crisp" instead.  Health benefits? Elimination of the "double-crust calories," though you will still have that crumbly topping to healthify.  The addition of oatmeal and/or nuts, could mean added protein and fiber though.

2. Open top pie!  Why not make an apple-pie, pumpkin-pie style?  Instead of covering up those beautiful Michigan apples with a crust or a crumble, arrange them decoratively and serve open-top.  This eliminates any extra calories from a top crust or crumble.

3. Play around with the sugar content.  Still seeking a traditional apple pie?  Why not play around with the amount of sugar you add to sweeten the apples? At their peak, they probably don't need as much sugar as you would add, say in January.  Likewise, if you choose a sweeter variety of apple, you can downgrade the amount of refined sugars you need to add.  You might even try brown sugar instead of white--which has a richer taste and sweetness, pairs well with apples and cinnamon, and will require less of to do the same job.


4. Try out the new lineup of non-sugar sweeteners.  When I'm eating fruit, and it needs a little boost of sweetness, I like to add Stevia, which lends a sweet, yet natural taste, as it is made from a plant.  I recently purchased some packets of Nectresse as well, which is made from monk fruit.  It seems to have a similar natural sweet-quality to Stevia.  These products don't taste like sugar--and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.  However, when you work toward eliminating sugar from your diet, you won't notice its replacement by these products as much.  To start, you might try to replace half the sugar with a non-sugar, calorie-free sweetener and see how you like it.

5.  Get radical.  I wonder what would happen if I made an apple crumb pie (or an apple crisp!), but used vanilla non-fat Greek yogurt in place of most of the butter in the crumble? Hmn, it would still provide the same quality of "moistness" as the oil, some sweetness too, so the sugar could be cut down, but questions remain about how it would hold up in the oven.  To be continued...

6. Try pie deconstructed.  Play around with the "concept" of pie.  It's cooked fruit.  It's a crunchy crust.  It's also possibly a la mode with ice cream...and maybe whipped cream on top too.  Why not cook up some apples in a pan with a bit of water, sweetener, and cinnamon?  Layer in a glass with crumbled low-calorie crunchy cookies, like vanilla wafers, and sugar-free, fat free, instant vanilla pudding and/or Cool Whip Lite?  It'll taste like pie, be a convenient single-serving, and eliminate a lot of the work and calories found in the traditional version.  It's the un-pie.

7.  Make a traditional pie.  Save yourself one piece to relish and dish out the

rest to friends and family via whimsical, homemade, wedge-shaped "pie boxes."  I once saw these in a Martha Stewart magazine...I'm sure you can find the pattern online somewhere.  You basically cut out some weird shape that, once folded and glued, resembles a triangular box, just-sized for pie.  You could even keep it closed with custom grosgrain ribbon and your own monogram hot-wax seal.  Ok..."ain't nobody got time for that"...but luckily Martha, being the entrepreneur that she is, realized the error of her ways and put them online for you, the uncrafty or busy consumer, to purchase: Pie Boxes.  The calorie-savings here are obvious, and you won't hear the remaining pie, in a muffled voice, calling your name at 3am from the cavernous retreat of the refrigerator.

And, as always, balance your treats with exercise.  Just because the temperature has dipped doesn't mean you have to give up your running, bicycling, etc.  Get out there and enjoy the crisp fall air, changing leaves, and scent of bonfires in the air!  Get yourself to a gym and figure out what's been going on in The Bold and the Beautiful since you  last saw it, while running on the elliptical, of course.  Feeling more motivated to eat that pie instead of go run in the cold? We've all been there.  Buy yourself some new cold-weather running gear--you'll want to wear it--and you'll look foolish if you're not actually running while wearing it, so problem solved (unless of course, you like to grocery shop in compression pants.)