Easy as Pie.

Surely some of you remember the ubiquitous chocolate pie. Your mom or some other relative may have brought it to a family gathering. It consisted of a pre-made pie shell filled with chocolate pudding and topped with whipped cream. The ultimate "I don't have time to make a dessert from scratch" dessert.

I present you with the raw version. It's more than slightly better.

This came about from a sense of desperation on Friday night when I realized that once again, my Irish moss experiment was a no-go. I've got to e-mail Café Gratitude and ask what I'm doing wrong. So my grand plans for lemon meringue pie were shot, and I had to think fast. I had a pie shell ready, made of 1/2 almonds and 1/2 mac nuts, and I did what I had to do.

I made Aunt [insert name here]'s lazy chocolate pie. Only here, I'm going to call it Easy as Pie.

You can make this in no time, kiddies.



Even topless, this pie is a delicious temptress. Wait. Does that sound dirty?


Easy as Pie

Crust

• 1 cup Macadamia nuts
• 1 1/4 Almonds
• sea salt
• 1/2 t dried orange peel (optional; I had put this in for the lemon meringue pie and it give it a nice little zing)

Blend ingredients until nuts are ground to a fine consistency. Mac nuts have a lot of oil, so be careful this doesn't turn into nut butter. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Press mixture into a pie pan (I used a glass one, and I greased it lightly with coconut oil first). Put into the freezer.

Pie filling

• 3-4 avocadoes
• 2-3 T raw cacao powder
• 10-13 dates, soaked and pitted
• 1/2 t salt
• 2T coconut cream or oil
• 1 vanilla bean, scraped (or 1 t vanilla extract)

These are all approximations, as I was really just making this by eye and taste. Put the avos in first, then the rest of the ingredients. Blend. All of the green from the avos goes away. When you have a luscious dark color, start tasting. Add more dates if necessary, or use agave. The lovely thing about avos is that they have such a standup, creamy consistency that sets quite well. The coconut cream/oil really helps that out, too. Blend, blend, and try not to eat half of it. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

Pour into pie shell and set in the fridge.

Whipped topping

• meat of 1 or 2 young coconuts
• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts
• 1 T coconut cream
• agave to taste
• 1/8 t salt
• 1 t arrowroot powder (optional; I used this because my Irish moss betrayed me. I find the arrowroot to be a nice binder, but you can just make this without).
  

Put in FP, blend until very creamy. Put into container in the fridge and let set up a bit; this makes spreading over the pie much easier.

Toppings
You are limited only by your imagination. I ground up some cacao nibs and put those on top, then did a layer of strawberries. Here's the final product. Sorry for the highly unprofessional, mostly eaten pie shot. I totally forgot to snap it and we had already descended upon this like raw vultures. But you get the idea.



I apologize for the blurry picture. My hands were shaking from pie lust.

Next time you're invited to the neighborhood block party, or one of those painful family events that leave you feeling like your sphincter is permanently clenched, bring one of these pies. Don't even tell people it's raw. They'll eat it with a smile and wonder why it tastes so much better than the chocolate pie they remember. Not that there's anything wrong with that...

xoxo

SIDEBOARD
If you want to get your raw Martha Stewart on (I cannot believe I just typed that), prepare a bunch of raw pie shells ahead of time. Using disposable tin pie pans, make a bunch, cover them tightly and freezer-proof. Next time you have a last-minute dessert to make, you can pull out a pie shell and you're halfway there.