Whole Grain Peach Crisp

Call it a crisp, call it a crumble, nothing makes my house smell more inviting in late summer than a delicious baked fruit dessert.  Peach crisp is one of my all-time favorite treats, and I love making it in August and September.

Peach crisp came into my childhood as a recipe off the side of a Bisquick box.  Later as an adult living in Italy, I no longer had the recipe- which was not a problem, since I couldn't buy Bisquick at my local supermercato! 

I trolled recipe websites for crisp and crumble recipes claiming any association with Betty Crocker, my go-to American dessert reference.  I found a recipe to start with, then made a lot of changes.  For healthier baking I use whole grains and alternative fats and sweeteners.  But the most radical change of all...I've taken out the peaches!

Yep, my favorite peach crisp doesn't have peaches.  After one experiment subbing nectarines for peaches, I've never made peach crisp with peaches again.

I love the hint of acid that yellow nectarines bring to the crisp.  Choose nectarines that are a touch harder than you would normally eat them, but still plenty juicy.  

So long as they're not overly ripe, nectarines are fast and easy to peel with a potato peeler.  

The recipe calls for six cups of sliced fruit, that's usually equivalent to about 6 large nectarines.  

A crisp, or crumble as it's sometimes called, is essentially like a French apple pie.  Fruit slices are coated with a mixture of flour, sugar, and spices, then topped with a butter and sugar streusel blend.  The pie crust is eliminated, and I don't miss it in the least!  To improve the nutrition served up with this yummy treat, I add oats and walnuts to the crumble topping.

This is a very homey dessert, and it adapts beautifully to alternative baking ingredients.  There are no rising agents to worry about, so feel free to sub flour types for your health needs.  For instance, replacing the wheat flour with oat flour would work well if you need to eat gluten-free.  If you need to cut down on the sugar, leave off the crumble topping, stir the walnuts directly into the filling, and bake the filling alone, with slightly reduced cooking time.  You'll miss some of the indulgence, but none of the amazing baking aroma.

And it really is worth the effort to make this dessert just for the awesome smell of it baking in the oven.  Another perk- when a few weeks go by, welcome autumn and apple season by replacing the nectarines with tart apples.  You'll fall in love with baked fruit all over again.

For the filling:

6 C firm nectarines peeled and sliced

2 T whole wheat pastry flour

1/4 C Turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)

3/4 t cinnamon

3/4 t nutmeg

For the crumble topping:

1/3 C Earth Balance butter substitute

2/3 C (shy) brown sugar

1 t cinnamon

1/4 t salt

1/2 C rolled oats

1/4 C whole wheat pastry flour

1/2 C chopped walnuts

Peel, remove the pits, and slice the nectarines.  Arrange slices in a single layer in an 8x8 square oven safe dish.  No need to grease the pan.

Dust the slices with the remaining filling ingredients and stir gently to coat the fruit slices with the dry ingredients.

Combine the dry ingredients for the crumble topping (except for the walnuts) into a small bowl.  Cut the butter into the dry ingredients with a fork.  Stir the walnuts into the topping.

Spread the crumble topping over the prepared fruit.  Bake uncovered at 350 for about 55 minutes.  Peaches should be bubbly, topping golden brown.

Serve warm with ice cream on top for maximum indulgence and joy.  Pictured above with a vanilla flavored frozen almond milk dessert.

Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter Banana Pie

I'm a devout peanut butter lover, and my husband goes nuts for bananas.  When I came across this recipe from love & olive oil, I knew that, sooner or later, it was our destiny.

Honey-Roasted Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie (No Bake!)

In my version of honey-roasted peanut butter banana pie, I made some changes.  Instead of crushing chocolate wafer cookies to make the crust, I used chocolate granola.  I pulverized the chocolate granola into fine crumbs and adhered them with some melted Earth Balance spread.  I left out the sugar.

For the honey-roasted peanut butter banana cream, I eliminated the sugar called for in the whipping cream, but otherwise followed the recipe as written (choosing to refrigerate, not freeze the pie).

For anyone who doesn't have a Vitamix, look in the bulk section of your local grocery store for a peanut butter grinder dedicated to honey roasted nuts.  There is one at my local Whole Foods.  The rest of the recipe can be made without the Vitamix.  I, personally, used a regular food processor to make crumbs for the crust, and used my Kitchen Aid to whip the cream.

I also skipped the whipped cream garnish on this pie, which cut out half the heavy cream.  We didn't miss it, either- the pie was already treat enough for us as pictured above.  Adding some freshly sliced bananas also makes a yummy and healthy garnish.

Next time I make this treat I'm going to experiment with eliminating the crust, entirely.  Making just the honey-roasted peanut butter banana cream, then putting it in a parfait cup with chocolate granola and sliced banana would make a beautiful (and lower fat) dessert.

Plato and the Reuben Sandwich

At what point is my alternative sandwich no longer a Reuben?

The ancient Greek philosopher, Plato, is famous for a lot of things.  The Reuben sandwich is not one of them.

One of the things Plato is famous for is his theory of Forms.  Plato posited that there is an ideal Form, Form with a capital F, for everything we come across in everyday life.  The Reuben sandwich, the one we all mean when we say we want a Reuben sandwich, is the Form, the ideal.  The actual sandwich we eat is not.

When my native New Yorker husband says he's craving a Reuben sandwich, he has a Form in his mind that goes something like: buttered rye bread with Russian dressing, corned beef, Swiss cheese, and sauerkraut.  According to Plato, no sandwich I could make would possibly hold up to that ideal Form.

Big thanks to Plato for letting me off the hook.  Since I can't possibly make the ideal Reuben sandwich, then I'm free to make it lower in fat, vegetarian, and whole grain.

This is the Reuben sandwich I actually make, light years distant from the Form:

2 slices 100% whole grain spelt bread
1 t Earth Balance Spread
1 t Thousand Island dressing
2 slices Hickory Smoked Tofurky
2 T well-squeezed sauerkraut with caraway seeds
2 slices Swiss cheese

I butter the outside of the bread, put Thousand Island on the inside of the slice.  Then I sandwich the Tofurky and sauerkraut between the two slices of Swiss cheese.  I toast the sandwich on my panini press.

I tried to balance the fact that my spelt bread isn't rye bread by using probiotic sauerkraut with caraway seeds.  The smoked Tofurky is supposed to be giving the impression of corned beef.

You could even go further with the alternative Reuben sandwich.  Vegan Thousand Island and vegan cheeses are available for those who avoid dairy.  Gluten free bread could be substituted- who knows, maybe there's a gluten free deli rye out there somewhere!

But here's the one change I tried to make that didn't work:

In an effort to curtail the huge fat content of this sandwich, I tried to leave off the "butter" (Earth Balance) on the outside of the bread, thinking that the fat from the Swiss cheese and Thousand Island were far more characteristic to the sandwich than the butter.  My husband wouldn't buy it.  A Reuben sandwich that hasn't been greased on the outside with something, somehow, is apparently not a Reuben sandwich.

His refusal on this point brought me into deep thought about what, exactly, makes a Reuben sandwich a Reuben sandwich.  How far away from that Platonic ideal of the Reuben can we get, before the sandwich we've created is no longer even a shadow of that Form?  Apparently I can take away the corned beef and swap out the rye and still sort of have a Reuben.  But if I forsake buttering the outside of the bread I do not.  If I took out the dressing it would not be a Reuben.  If I took out the cheese it would not be a Reuben.  If I put in vegan cheese would it become a Reuben again?

And what about all these substitute foods?  Play foods, really, foods in costume designed to look and somewhat taste like something they are not.  Soy disguised as turkey, cashews disguised as cheese.  Are any of these products Food with a capital F?  And if they are not Food, then is it because they were processed and packaged in a factory?  Or if I had made my own vegan cheese at home, would vegan cheese qualify as Food?

The question of alternative food substitutes is fodder for another post.  In the meantime, I'm left wondering whether a Reuben with much of its artery-clogging properties removed is still a Reuben, and feeling very grateful that the Reuben craving only comes once or twice a year.

The Frosting That Saved Valentine's Day

Healthy frosting is an oxymoron, but there are a couple times each year I have to try to make it a reality, and Valentine's Day is one of those times. When my first attempt at healthy frosting ended in disaster, this recipe for 1 Minute Chocolate Frosting from CDKitchen came to the rescue.
This frosting sounded too good to be true. Simple ingredients whose healthier alternatives I had on hand, and only one minute to make? It actually took me over an hour because the frosting boiled for one minute, then needed a long time to cool. That said, this one hour chocolate frosting was very forgiving of alternative ingredients and saved my hubby's Valentines Day treats!

Boiled frosting is a great option for attempting frosting with more wholesome sweeteners because it takes granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar. I could easily substitute turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw) for the white granulated sugar, I subbed Earth Balance for the butter, and used organic almond milk instead of dairy milk. All those changes, and the frosting still turned out great! Although I beat it in the mixer as per instructions, I don't think it really needed to be beaten, at least not with my mix of ingredient substitutions. It was already spreadable when just cooled and stirred.
Here is my altered recipe:
1 cup turbinado sugar (Sugar in the Raw)
1/4 cup cocoa
1/4 cup Earth Balance
1/4 cup almond milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
I dumped everything in a sauce pan and brought to a roiling boil, which I then kept going for 1 minute. I was supposed to put the vanilla in after the boil, but putting it in at the beginning didn't seem to hurt. I transferred the molten frosting to a bowl and let it cool for at least 45 minutes. At that point it was ready to stir (or beat) and spread sparingly for a fun, but not too unhealthy treat.