Healthy Pie? The search begins...

I LOVE pie. In fact, if you follow me a bit further through these posts, you'll see that it factors greatly in my life. Pie, to me, is comfort. It is the perfect blend of flavors - a little salty, a little sweet - meeting blissfully on the tongue.

Being that I love pie AND that I desire to eat it on a daily basis, but that I DON'T desire to blow up like a giant blueberry, I am starting the search for the perfect, healthy-ish pie. At least healthy enough that you feel ok eating it for breakfast...several times a week.

This is no easy feat, some would even say impossible. But I am determined to prevail.

Pie number one is apple...not my favorite pie flavor, but I had all of the ingredients onhand so I went for it.

Naturally, the apples themselves are fairly healthy, so that's a good start. I also went with the wholewheat crust, so you at least capitalize on the benefits of the whole grains. I used Trader Joe's Whole Wheat White flour, thinking that at least it would be lighter than conventional whole wheat flours.

Picking ripe apples was another key - I wanted to accentuate the natural fruit sugars of the apple, without adding processed sugar. I did add about 4 tablespoons of brown sugar this go round though.

Lastly, for a little bit of intensity, I added about half a cup of grated Dubliner Irish Cheddar. This may be the wild card in these ingredients...we shall see...the pie is in...stay tuned for the results!

The dough recipe used for Healthy Pie #1 is:

RECIPE

2.5 cups whole wheat white flour
1 tsp salt
2 Tbsp brown sugar
1.75 sticks unsalted butter (if using salted, reduce salt above)
6 Tbsp ice water

combine flour, salt and sugar in food processor. Pulse in butter to size of peas (10 pulses). Add in ice water and pulse until it forms a ball. Divide ball in two and roll into a top and bottom crust. Put in fridge while prepping other ingredients.