High In The Sky Apple Pie!

The game has changed, folks.  No more of this wimpy cooking caveman crap, we've gone to the next level.  It's one thing to make a dish using only organic caveman items like Mexican Shrimp Scampi, or Roasted Chicken.  "Oh boy, Mr. Caveman Big Shot, you took all natural veggies, herbs, spices, and meat and cooked a meal with it?  I'll alert the friggin' media!  Sheesh, what a stuck up, Jerk!  I hope he gains all that weight back!"  No, no, you don't understand.  What I've done this time will win me the Nobel Prize for Former Fat Bastards.  Like Dr. Frankenstein (It's pronounced Frahn-ken-Steene), I have taken bits and pieces of inanimate food and created an APPLE PIE!!!!!  I'm not sure you heard me.  I used all caveman ingredients and MADE AN APPLE PIE!!!!!!!  That means no wheat flour, no processed sugar (brown or white), no butter, no milk, no cream, no lard.  And it came out GREAT!!!!!!  Take a look see:

Let's backtrack.  Last week I attempted my first pie, pumpkin.  It was "just okay," mainly do to my screwing up the spices.  My main problem was way too much cloves.  I didn't realize it until I was eating the leftovers, but the cloves were making it almost inedible.  The taste was dominating my mouth.  But it was more than that.  Then I started realizing, I was having trouble tasting anything after eating the pumpkin pie.  It finally dawned on me that my mouth had become a little numb!  Then I remembered back to the movie (and my favorite book) "Marathon Man" ("Is it safe?")!  The dentist uses simple oil of cloves to numb the tooth pain he was inflicting on Dustin Hoffman!  I half expected Lawrence Olivier to come into my kitchen and start drilling into my teeth (Nazi bastard!).

Anyway, I had enough of pumpkin pie for a while.  But the thing that was encouraging was the pie crust.  I used coconut flour, which was nothing more than organic ground coconut (all ingredients on the caveman diet are all organic, all the time), eggs, coconut oil, and honey.  I nailed it!  It tasted just like pie crust!  It didn't even taste like coconut, which can be overwhelming in whatever dish you use it in, but in the pie crust it only had a hint of coconut flavor.  So when I saw organic apples on sale at Whole Foods (69 cents a pound, unheard of for organic produce), I decided to make an apple pie!

My good friends Brad & Sean'a invited me over to be my guinea pigs.  They were interested for some time now in seeing if this food I blog about was as good as I claimed, so they graciously offered to buy the groceries if I do the shopping and cook.  I wasn't looking to cook for another group of people (see my catering blunder blog), but I haven't seen them in a while, and it was a great chance to share a meal with two of my favorite people.  Plus, it was a great opportunity to test this apple pie!  I really had no idea how it would turn out, so I made sure I made some tried and true caveman recipes for dinner, in case dessert was a disaster!

There were four of us, Brad, Sean'a, and my buddy Jonathan (no, not pork loin Jonathan, voice over Jonathan, another great friend).  None of them had had my cooking before, but all were healthy eaters, so no one grabbed for the salt shaker when I served dinner, even though I warned them they might need it if they thought it was bland.  I started them off with a little appetizer while I cooked.  Simple and delicious, Caveman Bruschetta.  I baked some rosemary walnut bread (same as my almond bread recipe, only I ground walnuts into flour instead of almonds, because I was using almonds in the main course), sliced it into small squares, and then scooped over it a simple raw mixture of chopped heirloom tomato, garlic, basil, and olive oil.  That's it.  Fresh, delicious, and a nice light way to start a meal.  It was fantastic!  Look:

Pretty good, huh?

For the main course, I made the Caveman Fried Chicken and Golden Encrusted Brussels Sprouts (look it up in the August archives for the recipes, you lazy bastards).  I burned the veggies a bit, but it just added to the caramelization, so they were still yummy.  The chicken was PERFECT, better than I ever made it before.  Perfectly seasoned and perfectly cooked.  This is what Seana's plate looked like:

Yummy, yummy yummy!  By the way, Sean'a took all these photos.  She's an amazing photographer, and she didn't even use her professional camera for these.

But while we ate dinner, I kept checking on the pie.  It took me all day to make it.  My day started early, first researching different apple pie recipes, looking for one that would be the easiest to convert to caveman style.  I finally picked one, and went to work.  I went to a restaurant supply store to buy a gadget that would core and peel apples, but they were out of stock.  But as I drove home dreading the idea of peeling apples all day, I passed by a K-Mart, and found an apple peeler for $14!  It makes life a lot easier, but you know what, it was still a royal pain in the ass!  I still had to de-core, and then slice those suckers, and it took a while.

I bought one large Granny Smith apple (which most recipes recommended) and the rest were gala apples.  Granny Smith is a tart apple and galas are sweet.  I figured the sweeter the better, because I wasn't adding sugar (which every recipe called for), but I did want one Granny Smith for contrast.  As I sliced them I dumped them into a bowl with water and a little lemon juice to prevent discoloring.  When apples hit the open air, they start to oxidize, or in simple terms, they turn brown (why didn't you just say that in the first place, Asshole!)  Sorry.

I then threw the apples into a skillet with a little of the lemon water and added about a half a cup of honey.  Now although honey is pure sugar, and therefore by definition, bad for you, it's still a pure food, and not refined, like cane or brown sugar.  So compared to those sugars, it's downright healthy.  But in general, it's best to avoid sugar.  Even fruit should be eaten in extreme moderation, even if it is organic.  I put in about a tablespoon of cinnamon, a half tablespoon of nutmeg, and a TINY speckle of clove, just enough to keep the Nazi's away.

I reduced the mixture to a simple syrup.  When it was thick and coated all the apples, I transferred it to a bowl for cooling.  The apples were still firm.  I didn't want to cook them too much and make them mushy, because then I would have apple sauce pie.  All I wanted to do was release some of their liquid, so that when I baked the pie, it wouldn't shrink too much under the top crust.  Then I added a step that I wish I hadn't.  I sprinkled on some arrowroot to thicken the mixture, because some recipes said corn starch will make it all bake together thick and syrupy, but truthfully, all it did was take a gorgeous brown syrup and make it cloudy.  I think the mixture would have been fine without it, and I'll leave it out next time I make it.

Once the apple filling was cool, I made the crust.  I took 6 eggs, about a cup of honey, and 12 tablespoons of coconut oil, mixed them together, and then slowly added coconut flour until it was thick and dough like (but not too dry!).  I greased my 9 inch apple pan with coconut oil, and just formed a crust with my hands, making sure there wasn't any part too thick, especially around the edges.  Then I added the apple filling, and formed more dough on top to cover it all.  I took a knife and cut three slices in the top to make sure the pie could vent, and when I got to Seana's, I put it in the oven at 350, covering the edges in foil to prevent them from burning (they burned a little, because I didn't remember to do it until I saw the edges start to burn).

After about an hour, I saw the top was done, and this is what it looked like:

Oh yeah!  I had high hopes at this point.  But we really didn't know what we had until it cooled and we cut into it.  We finished dinner, which was quite good if I can pat myself on the back for a moment (wait, I'm about to beat myself to death with compliments), while the pie cooled.

30 minutes later we were ready to see if the experiment was a success or failure.  Brad did the honors of cutting into it (I was too nervous and scared).  But take a look at the results:

Doesn't that look like pie????!!!!!  Look at that crust!  It looks like pie crust!

I especially love how the sides came out.  I know I keep repeating myself, but it LOOKS LIKE PIE CUST!  The pie crust tasted like pie crust!  The apple pie filling tasted like apple pie filling!  The snozzberries tasted like snozzberries!  Okay, that's a quote from Willy Wonka, but you get my point!  Not only did it "remind me" of pie, like the pumpkin did, it actually tasted like apple pie!!!!  It looked, smelled and tasted great!  If you didn't know I made it without any dairy, sugar, or wheat flour, you would have guessed you were eating traditional apple pie!  It's one thing to say we were eating healthy fried chicken (which we were), but it's another all together to say we were eating healthy APPLE PIE (WHICH WE WERE!!)!!  Of all the recipes I've converted to caveman cooking, this one, for me, is by far the closest thing to the real deal.  And to think, when I started this diet, I assumed the only dessert I would ever eat again would be fresh fruit.  Now I'm eating pie that tastes like pie.  Real pie.  I think I'm gonna faint.

Brad commented he even liked it better than the real deal, because he never liked apple pie, thinking it's usually too sweet.  But this one seemed just right, and it tasted ultra fresh!  I want to thank Brad, and especially my co-conspirator Sean'a, who plotted with me about turning this apple pie experiment into a reality.  They also had the idea I should cook for other families, as long as they paid for the groceries, and invited at least three hot single girls.  Now that's something I can affirmatively say, "Ugga-Bugga" to!

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