My mother was not a "lingerer." Showers were for removing dirt as quickly as possible, and except in rare cases (like when her sons decided to play tackle football in the mud) should never exceed 10 minutes. The kitchen was for filling bellies, and no recipe requiring her to actually stay in the room longer than half an hour was acceptable (thus her legendary love for the slow cooker... "Set it and forget it!")...
In a house where dinner routinely hit the table 20 minutes after Mom got home from work, you can bet most "desserts" were served straight out of the can (love that room temperature fruit cocktail... room temperature apple sauce... room temperature purple plums... sigh)...
But once in a while, on a summer Sunday afternoon, Mom would surprise us with an amazing "homemade" treat like hot apple pie alamode... Of course, in Mom's impatient culinary universe, both the pie and the ice cream came straight from the grocery store freezer case... But that was "homemade" in our world! She brought it "home," right...?
Vegan apple pie recipes are everywhere these days... But how about one you can whip together as quickly as my mom could get that frozen pie home from the store?
Surprise! Apple pies!
The crust:
Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tablespoons unsweetened plain soymilk
Directions:
1. Combine all of the dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.
2. Add the soy milk and oil, and mix thoroughly with a fork.
3. Pat about 2/3 of this simple dough into a 9-inch pie pan. Roll the remaining third out on a floured cutting board to use as the top of the pie.
The filling:
Ingredients:
4-5 Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and thinly sliced
1/3 cup vegan margarine, softened (I use Earth Balance, which you can find these days at most regular grocery stores. If there's no "health food" version of vegan margarine available to you, though, try Blue Bonnet Light. It may be one molecule away from plastic, but it is, at least, 100% vegan…)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Distribute the apple slices evenly in the crust. Dot with half the vegan margarine.
3. Combine the brown sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a mixing bowl. Stir in the remaining margarine. Crumble this mixture on top of the apples.
4. Add the top crust and crimp around the edges. Make a few cuts with a sharp knife to allow steam to escape while baking.
5. Bake for 45 minutes at 350 degrees (you can leave the kitchen to go do something else while it cooks... You can bet Mom would have!).