Welcome Back!

Hello Everyone! It has been a long time! Life has been beyond hectic the last few months, but don't worry I am coming back with a vengence. Last night I was invited to a friends dinner party. I offered to bring dessert! I have been contemplating trying to make an healthy verison of apple pie lately. It's one of my favorite pies, but it is pretty labor intensive. Therefore, I came up with this recipe instead. It still takes some time to do it, but the effort is worth it!

Apple Pie Bake! 

First I started off by cutting up some apples and removing the core. I left the skins on because they have extra nutrients and vitamins in them. Plus you won't be able to taste the skin because of how thinly the apples will be sliced. If you are slicing the apples by hand I would remove the skins.  After coring the apples I placed them in my electric mandolin that my mother got my for Christmas like two years ago! I completely forgot I had it, but NEW TOY!

 

I used phyllo dough in this recipe (forgot to take a picture of it!) Phyllo dough is really thin sheets of dough and bakes to a flaky consistency. Normally when working with phyllo dough you have to layer it with lots and lots of butter. This is to make sure it bakes to the flaky consistency you want and to add flavor. Instead of butter I used PAM cooking spray. I took a thin sheet of phyllo dough, placed it in the pan, then sprayed PAM until the dough was wet. I repeated this step 4 times and made sure to spray each layer with the PAM.



Next, I took the thinly sliced apples and layered them on top of the four slices of phyllo dough (pictured above.) I put about two layers of apples because it was they were so thin. However, if you slice them by hand only do one layer.

Next, I took:

1/2 c oats
1/2 c JR's Cinnamon Chips (pictured to the left)
1/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c walnuts
1 tsp cloves
1 tsp nutmeg

and mixed them in a small bowl. Then I took half the mixture and layered it on top of the apple (pictured right.)

I repeated the process until I had no room left in the pan. I topped the dish with its final four sheets of phyllo dough and topped the dish with a dash of cinnamon.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Top the apple pie bake with aluminum foil to keep the top from burning. Bake 30 minutes covered.

Take the foil off and bake for an additional 20 minutes.

VOILA!

Once the apple pie bake has cooled, carefully remove it from the pan. I used a cookie sheet and a piece of aluminum foil and flipped the apple pie bake out of the pan (pictured below.)

I had to try a piece so I cut it open and tried a quick bite...sooooo good :)



DELICIOUS AND NUTRITIOUS! 

Super Charge Me Cookies

So I am obsessed with desserts. When I say obsessed I am putting it VERY mildly. Whenever I find a healthy recipe for a dessert I HAVE to try it out. Therefore, when I came across the recipe for Super Charge Me Cookies it took me literally two seconds to go out and buy the ingredients to try it out! This is what you need:

1 cup quick oats (all I had was rolled oats and they worked just fine)

2/3 spelt flour

1/3 ground flax Meal (picture of flax seed is below is shown below. I used to by accident and the cookies still came out fine.)

1/4 tsp (rounded) sea salt
1/4 – 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/8 cup unsweetened shredded coconut (optional, I did not use them)
1/4 –1/3 cup raisins or chopped dried fruit
3–4 tbsp carob or chocolate chips (optional; or use more dried fruit, nuts, or seeds)
1 tsp baking powder

(Dry Ingredients)

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

3 tbsp almond butter (may use cashew, peanut, hemp seed butter)

1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

2 tbsp organic olive oil

Mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet in the other.

(Wet)

Mix all the ingredients into one bowl. Add any type of dried fruit, nuts, coconut, etc. I was making these for my brother and he is super picky so I stuck to dark chocolate chips and whole unsalted almonds.

My roommate Brett wanted credit for helping stir them. The great things about these cookies is that you can eat the dough raw because there are no raw eggs or anything in them. Plus the dough is AWESOME raw!

Now stick them on a baking sheet. The oven needs to be at 350 degrees.

Bake them for 13 minutes AT MOST. I baked mine for around 10 because my oven cooks a hell of a lot faster than most. If you cook them for over 13 minutes or they will dry out.

TAHHH DAHHH!

Look at that!

Delicious and nutritious.

Flax seed/meal and spelt flour as so super nutritious. The more dried fruit and nuts you put in them the better! However, don't eat a thousand of them because they still have some fat in them!

Enjoy all! I know I will

Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato

I love this recipe I found on Food Network for Chocolate Hazelnut Gelato!!! I LOVE gelato but to be quite honest it is not the healthiest dessert on the planet. So what I love to do is take a recipe from a book/magazine/internet/etc. This is Giada De Laurentis recipe below:

Her Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup chocolate-hazelnut spread (recommended: Nutella)
• 1/2 cup toasted hazelnuts, crushed, for garnish

My Ingredients

• 2 cups fat free milk
• 1 cup light cream
• 1/2 cup sugar, plus 1/4 cup
• 2 egg yolks, 2 egg whites
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup chocolate-hazelnut spread (recommended: Nutella)

How you start is you combine milk, cream, and 1/2 cup sugar in a pan over medium heat. While the combination is cooking combine egg whites, yolks, and 1/4 cup sugar in a bowl. Whisk until mixture turns a pale yellow (about 4 minutes)

Then once the mixture on the stove is warm (DO NOT LET IT BUBBLE) add 1/2 cup of the stove mixture into the egg mixture and whisk. You are basically gradually adding the hot mixture to the eggs so that when you combine them the eggs don't cook (like scrambled eggs) and ruin your gelato. After adding 1/2 cup hot mixture and whisking pour the egg mixture into the saucer pan on the stove.

Let the mixture cook for about 7-10 minutes. You will know when the gelato is done when it can coat the back of a wooden spoon!

Once finished pour mixture into a large bowl.

Add Nutella and vanilla extract.

And stir until the mixture turns a lovely chocolate color

Refrigerate until the mixture is cold. DO NOT stick hot liquid into an ice cream machine! It will not work! Make sure the mixture is completely cooled through about an hour in the fridge. After completely cooled take mixture and poor into whatever ice cream machine you have and follow the manufactures instructions

After the Gelato has hardened (25 minutes) place it in a freezer safe container and freeze over night! Then VIOLA!

Garnish with whatever topping you'd like or eat by itself! A delicious spin on a very fatty recipe!

ENJOY