what a beautiful day to celebrate all of the strong, beautiful, forgiving, kind, selfless mothers in our lives! since i am the only one in my family who is not a mother (and will actually do something!), i put myself in charge of mother's day lunch/dinner! the menu looks something like this:
-ham & swiss puff pastry (a family recipe that is so not healthy, but requested by many!)
-cucumber noodle salad with radish, juicy mango and a cilantro-tahini sauce (recipe to come!)
-baked sweet potato fries with special sauce
-steamed lemony asparagus
-fresh fruit bowl
-peanut + dark chocolate mulberry crunch bites (also, recipe to come!)
-great grandma lulie's fresh strawberry pie, re-vamped a bit and upgraded to a healthier version!
i love taking old, traditional family favorite recipes and making them in a healthier way. it really is my passion since i believe in indulging in childhood favorites that bring back a flood of beautiful memories!
this pie is no exception. ever since i was little i remember my mother and grandmother making this pie and loving it so much! a light and flaky crust with the sweetest strawberry filling and a little whip on top. so today i make it to honor these wonderful women, and my great grandmother, who i believe is the one who made up the recipe, probably using fresh strawberries from her garden-amazing!
the recipe is fairly simple and fool-proof. instead of making the crust with white flour and corn oil, i used a mix of tigernut four, which is wonderfully sweet and a great source of prebiotic fiber, along with green banana flour, which is not sweet, but also a great source of resistant starch, and for the oil, i used cacao butter, melted, which gave it a hint of white-chocolatey goodness....yes!
what really made me excited about making this pie was using my new toy, an ISI stainless steel whipped cream dispenser that i used to make a super healthy version of whipped cream with coconut cream, vanilla bean powder and a touch of stevia. the dispenser makes the consistency perfect! but of course, if you don't have one you can always make coconut whipped cream with a whisk and a speedy arm (:
for the crust:
-preheat oven to 425F.
-in a bowl, mix well:
1/3 c gently melted cacao butter
1/2 c banana flour
1/2 c tigernut flour
1/2 t sea salt
-use hands to mix, then add in 2 T water. grease a pie pan lightly with cacao butter and press crust evenly into the bottom and up sides of the dish. bake for 8 minutes, then cool.
strawberry filling:
in a medium sauce pan, add:
1 c chopped strawberries
2/3 c water
-bring to a boil, while mashing berries as they soften. once boiling and thoroughly mashed, add in:
1 c sugar of choice (i used a mixture of 1/2 c lakanto sugar + 1 dropper full of vanilla stevia to keep it very low in sugar. you could also use coconut sugar or all stevia. you can even try brown rice syrup or honey!)
1 T gelatin/collagen
1/3 c water
-whisk well while boiling for 2-3 minutes, then remove and cool.
-add a thin layer of strawberry glaze to the bottom of the baked pie crust, then top with 1-2 c chopped strawberries. pour the remaining glaze over the top and smooth over. chill pie.
-option to serve with this delicious coconut whipped cream:
coconut whip:
-place 2 cans full-fat coconut milk in fridge overnight. in the morning, open and scrape off the cream that has solidified on the top in to a bowl. you can save the coconut water or discard it. add to the cream in the bowl: 1/8 t vanilla bean powder + stevia to taste (you don't even need to add stevia if you don't want!). whisk well and chill, or transfer to your whipped cream dispenser and follow the directions for use.
-top pie, and enjoy this beautiful, healthy, summer treat!
No comments:
Post a Comment