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Monday, March 19, 2012

Sweet Monday

I mentioned that I have changed our eating habits at home and one of the biggest changes for us was the amount of sugar that we shoveled down daily. Truly, I was the biggest offender as I have always had an unbelievable sweet tooth and I was the one buying the packaged/processed food that was full of it. We haven't cut out every bit of sugar as I am still fighting a losing battle against breakfast cereal and the like, but I HAVE managed to cut it out of everything that I make at home. Instead I use honey and maple syrup as sweeteners. In coffee, baking, oatmeal and everything in between - I won't lie to you and say it didn't take some adjustments in taste, but I'm so glad we made that leap. When I do have sugar now I get terrible headaches and feel sick, so I'll take that as my body being happy with the changes in place.
With that being said we still love to have treats and I see nothing wrong with having a yummy dessert now and again. So I have been experimenting and adjusting with recipes and thought I would share!
These have been ALL over Pinterest and I have wanted to try them since I first saw the picture. The hollowing out of the apple was frustrating and I cracked a couple of the apple skins, but hid them with pie crust, so nobody knew any better :)
I used the apple I had hollowed out and cut it into tiny pieces, added 1 tsp cinnamon and 6 Tbls maple syrup. Let it sit for about 15 min and then used a slotted spoon to just get the sweet apple chunks into the apple skins and leave all that maple syrup behind. Covered with a homemade pie crust, into the pan with a bit of water in the bottom.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes then remove foil and bake for another 20 minutes. The one change I would make next time would be to drain the water after I remove the foil for the second baking as it ended up making the pie crust soggy and I had to put them back in on a cookie sheet to get it crisp again - but all in all definitely worth the work! Everyone loved them - sugar free and all!

3 comments:

  1. Looks good...I'll have to try it, because I'm looking for things to quell my need for sweets :)

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  2. Mmm, these look awesome! I'll have to try this.

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  3. They are so good, time consuming, but so good! :) Plus a great break from "traditional" pies

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