Weekly Exercise Challenge

I almost forgot to post this week.  As expected, I didn't meet my 2 hour with 4 miles of running goal last week but I did manage to get in two really good workouts.  Considering the week we had with the holiday and funeral, I'm pretty happy with it.

Total workout time - 1.5 hours
Total run distance - 2.5 miles

This challenge was originally going to go until the end of the year and then I planned to change it.  Since I've had a rough couple of weeks, though, I'm going to leave my goal where it is for now.  I'll re-evaluate it in a few weeks.

I also continued to do my plank challenge everyday but I've been unable to hold it longer than 1 minute 32 seconds.  I'm continuing to try though.  I missed last Friday because we were at the wake all day and I was exhausted mentally and physically once we got home.

Weekly Meal Plan

Our produce for the week

On Christmas Eve this year, my sister-in-law ask me to send her my weekly meal plan so that she could follow it or at least get some ideas.  I've been planning my meals for years now and I always have people asking me about it so I thought I'd start posting some of them here on my blog.

Now that I have returned to work, I have to plan the week around meals that are quick and easy so that Bill and Kayleigh can prepare them.  I also tend to repeat recipes more often than I used to because they get pretty irritated having to figure out a new recipe every day!

I'm thinking that I'll post my menu plan for the upcoming week on Saturdays so that if anyone decides to use any of the meals, there is time to go grocery shopping.  I probably won't post every week's plan but I'll try to get at least two in every month.

When planning meals I usually pick 2-3 cookbooks for recipes and then add in some of my own recipes. I'll list the cookbooks that the recipes come from and try to post one of the recipes here sometime during the week.

This week I picked 3 cookbooks:

"Quick and Easy Vegan Celebrations" by Alicia Simpson

"Vegan Holiday Kitchen" by Nava Atlas

"Wild About Greens" by Nava Atlas

I selected the two holiday ones because a lot holidays fall in the winter so they both have good choices for this time of year.  I feel like our diet hasn't been as healthy as it should be lately with everything we had going on so that is where the Greens cookbook comes in.  When in doubt, eat more greens!

So, here is my plan for this week.  I'm going to be home all but two of the days so this isn't one of the quick and easy menu plans but it still isn't too difficult.

Sunday
Sauerkraut
Roasted garlic mashed potatoes - p. 180 Celebrations

Monday
Multi-veg hash browns - p. 270 Holiday Kitchen
White bean and greens burgers - p. 114 Greens

Tuesday
Southwestern-style greens with pinto beans - p. 105 Greens
Baked potato soup or Spinach & fennel soup

Wednesday
Hoppin' John - p. 274 Holiday Kitchen
Cornbread

Thursday
Quinoa with kale, sweet potatoes, and pecans - p. 85 Greens
Roasted cauliflower and broccoli

Friday
Pad See Ew - p. 122 Greens
Tempeh kuku paka - p. 224 Celebrations

All of these recipes are vegan except for the baked potato soup.  I've tried to veganize that but it just didn't taste good so Bill and Kayleigh will have that and I'm having the spinach and fennel soup.  Saturday is always leftovers or whatever we can throw together.  Some of these recipes are new to me so I'll let you know at the end of the week how they worked out.

Spaghetti Sauce

Hope everyone had a nice holiday.  We celebrate with my family on Christmas Eve and, for the first time ever, it was at my parent's house instead of ours.  Although I still cooked a lot of the food, it was nice to not have to worry about cleaning the house.  We had planned this change over a month ago and with the recent death in our family and our unfinished house projects, I was really glad it wasn't here!

Yummy snacks on Christmas Eve

Several years ago, we had pasta with your choice of marinara, Alfredo or pesto.  That was when we discovered that my niece, who usually wouldn't eat any of my food, loves my marinara sauce.  Funny enough, Kayleigh won't touch it!  This year my mom thought it would be easiest to have spaghetti so I brought the sauce, which we have now renamed "Lily's Spaghetti Sauce".  Kayleigh didn't eat it, as usual, but everyone else seemed to enjoy it.

On Christmas day, Bill and Kayleigh used to go to his mom's house.  I'd stay home and try to get our house back in some kind of order after our Christmas Eve celebrations.  This year, obviously, Bill and Kayleigh had no where to go so we all lounged around and had a very nerdy Christmas watching these all day:

It was so relaxing.  We then had fajitas for dinner - not very traditional!  Also, the three of us have very similar senses of humor so one person would make a joke and we would just keep it going.  At one point we were laughing so hard we could barely breath!  It seemed wrong since we are supposed to be mourning but I think it helped Bill keep his mind off what is coming later in the week.  Overall I would say it was a pretty good Christmas considering the circumstances.

Looks like they planned their outfits but they didn't!

Spaghetti Sauce

1 1/2 T olive oil

1/3 cup onion, chopped

2 cloves garlic, chopped

1 T tomato paste

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp crushed red pepper

28 oz can of crushed tomatoes1 cup vegetable broth or water

1/4 cup pine nuts, coarsely chopped

3-4 sun dried tomatoes, chopped

5 pepperoncini, chopped

1 tsp pepper

1 T salt

1/4 cup brown sugar

In a large pot, heat the oil over medium heat.  Saute the onion until nice and caramelized  Add the garlic and cook two minutes.  Add the tomato paste, Italian seasoning and crushed red pepper and cook for 2 more minutes.  Add the remaining ingredients.  Reduce the heat and simmer for 30 minutes until the sauce thickens.  Taste the sauce after about 10 minutes and add more salt and/or sugar if needed.

NOTE:  If you don't have pepperoncini on hand, add 3 T balsamic vinegar at the very end.

Day Late and a Dollar Short

I didn't get a chance to post my weekly exercise challenge results yesterday.  I don't have the exact numbers at the moment but I can say that I didn't come close on the run distance or overall time.  Usually I don't think sitting on the couch watching TV is a good excuse to not exercising but last week it was.  My husband's mother has been battling cancer this year and passed away Saturday.  Last week we knew the end was near and I felt like I was being more useful watching TV and talking with Bill than I would have been on the treadmill.  This week probably won't go much better but that is OK.

On top of his mom, we also lost his sister's father-in-law the week before and my aunt has only been given a couple days.  It has not been a happy few weeks for our families but I've been overwhelmed by the support from our friends.  It has meant so much.  Today I went into work for half a day and one of my co-workers brought in a taco dip (vegan!) for me to take home so we'd have something to eat around the house while we made all the funeral arrangements.  I've only been at this job for 5 months but I have made such good friends already.  They have really been thoughtful and supportive and I can't begin to express my gratitude.

Blurry but delicious taco dip

The only positive exercise accomplishment I had last week was that I did my plank challenge every day.  I was amazed on Friday when I held it for 1.5 minutes.  I never thought I could do that!  Unfortunately tonight I was supposed to do 2 minutes but I completely collapsed at 1 minute 32 seconds.  I've decided to keep trying to reach the 2 minutes.  When I do, I'll continue the challenges from there so it will definitely take me longer than 30 days.  On the bright side, Bill tried it with me tonight and only made it 27 seconds so I feel pretty good about my time!

Winter Exercise Goal - Week 3

I just finished week three and once again I met my goal:

Total workout time - 2 hours 18 minutes
Total run distance - 4.25 miles

Every week I think I'm not going to reach the running goal but so far I've been able to pull it off.  Friday I struggled through my run but ended up getting 2 miles.  That left me with only half a mile needed on Saturday.  I really need my recovery days so even though it wasn't a long distance, I was worried about running two days in a row.

Since it was such a short distance though, I decided to push my speed.  The guidelines I was using last winter on the treadmill were 5 MPH for slow, 5.5 for comfort and 5.8 to push myself.  Recently I've noticed that anything below 6 MPH seems really slow.  So yesterday I ran the half mile at 6.5 just to see it I could do it.  Once I met that challenge and walked a little bit, I decided to go a quarter mile more but keep increasing the speed to see the fastest I could handle.  Shockingly, I got up to 7.4!  I possibly could have gone faster but I got scared and had to slow down.

Overall, I feel a lot better.  My headaches, upset stomach, and general tiredness have mostly gone away while my stress at work has increased so I think the regular exercise is definitely working.

One of my co-workers is doing a plank challenge so I decided to start that last week as well.  I had my daughter pick a random 30-day challenge off the Internet and she picked this one:

I started this past Monday.  Planks are probably my biggest weakness so I'm not sure how I will do at this.  As you can see (maybe) I did 45 seconds today but by the end of the week, I'm supposed to be at 1.5 minutes.  What?!  We'll see!

Butternut Squash Soup

We had our first big snowfall overnight and it is still snowing. Luckily it is Saturday so I don't have to go to work but that also means I don't really want to go to the grocery store.  So I was digging through the refrigerator looking for something that could work for lunch.  I stumbled across the bottom part of a butternut squash way in the back that still looked good so I decided to turn it into soup.

Usually butternut squash soups have sweeter flavors in them that I don't care for.  I prefer spice and garlic so I went with curry kind of flavors.  I was expecting a thick creamy soup when I was done but it turned out much thinner so I threw leftover rice in at the last minute.  It turned out nice and spicy and perfect for a snowy day.

I often take leftovers and turn them into soup so I think I'll do that as a series here.  Every couple weeks or so through the winter, I'll come up with a soup based on the leftovers in my fridge.

Here's the first.

Butternut Squash Soup

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 cup onion, chopped

4 cloves garlic, smashed

4 cups chopped butternut squash

1/2 tsp sweet white miso

1 cup light coconut milk

3 cups water

1/2 tsp garam masala

1 cup cooked jasmine rice

ground pepper

lemon juice

Heat the oil over medium heat in a medium sized soup pot.  Add the onion and garlic and cook until softened.  Add the butternut squash and miso.  Cook two minutes.  Stir in the coconut milk, water, and garam masala.  Bring it to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover, and cook until the squash is soft (10-15 minutes).  Transfer the soup to a blender (or use an immersion blender) and process until the soup is completely smooth.  Return the soup to the pot and stir in the rice.  Heat a couple minutes until heated through.  

On each serving add ground pepper and a sprinkle of lemon juice.

Eggless Experiment Revisited & Week 2 Exercise Goal

Last night around 8 PM I decided that I had to have brownies.  I have several vegan brownie recipes that are good but they are never the same as a box mix.  We had discovered earlier this year that Betty Crocker makes a mix that doesn't contain dairy so we've had a couple boxes of that on hand for when I needed brownies quickly.  We've always used Egg Beaters with it though.

This past summer, Kayleigh and I tested several egg substitute options by replacing the one egg in chocolate chip cookies.  Last night we decided to try our favorite to replace the two eggs called for with the brownie mix.  Our favorite of the five options we tried was the arrowroot powder so we used 2 tablespoons of that mixed with 6 tablespoons water.

I didn't notice any difference in the taste or texture.  Kayleigh thought they actually tasted better.  So now we know that will work for replacing two eggs as well as it did for one.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for a recipe that calls for 3 eggs for a future test. Usually the more eggs you are replacing, the less successful the results so we'll see.

 As for my weekly exercise goal, here are my results for this week:

12/1 - 12/7
Total workout time: 2 hours 8 minutes
Total run distance: 4 miles

I met my goal again but I almost didn't.  We are trying to get a lot of house projects done before Christmas this year so our house has looked like this lately:

That has made it a little harder to get my workouts in.  Last night I knew I still needed 1 mile of running and about 15 minutes which is obviously doable but I thought brownies sounded better than running at 8 PM!  Then when we were about to put them in the oven, I started to feel guilty so on the spur of the moment, I jumped on the treadmill and told Kayleigh to call me when the brownies were done.  So my goal was met and I got to eat brownies too!

Week One - Exercising Results

I've completed the first week of my winter exercising program. My goal was to workout for 2 hours including 4 miles of running.  I immediately regretted the 4 mile part of the goal but I decided early in the week that even if I didn't reach it, I'd leave that out there as a goal.  I wanted it to be reasonable based on my schedule but to also a challenge.

I was absolutely shocked when I went through my twitter posts this week and found that I had actually met the entire goal.  I had to re-add it several times to make sure!  My results are as follows:

11/24 - 11/30

Total workout time: 2 hours 45 minutes

Total run distance: 4 miles

Shocking!  I'm going to keep the goal at this level for the rest of 2013 and then re-evaluate and hopefully increase it a little.  My main purpose right now is to get back in the habit of exercising on a regular basis.  And on that note - I need to go workout!

Rugelach

Happy Hanukkah everyone!

Very quick post today.  Just a recipe.  These are a pain to make but they are worth it.

Rugelach

2 cups flour

1 cup margarine

8 oz vegan cream cheese

1/3 cup vegan sour cream

Filling:

1/2 cup sugar

1 tbsp cinnamon

1 cup chopped walnuts

1/2 cup mini chocolate chips

Preserves (our favorites are raspberry, apricot, or blueberry)

In a food processor pulse the flour, margarine, cream cheese, and sour cream until crumbly.  Shape it into 2 disks, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.  We usually leave it over night.  

Combine the sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and chocolate chips.

Sprinkle some of this mixture on your board.  Place the first disk on the mixture.  Top it with wax paper and then roll it out to a 9 inch circle.  Spread the preserves in a thin layer and then top with about 1/4 of the cinnamon mixture.  Cut the disk into 8 equal slices using a pizza cutter.  Roll the wedges from the widest edge to the point.  Place them on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Chill for 20 minutes.

Bake at 350 degrees for for 22 minutes.  Cool on wire rack.  Continue with the remaining dough, keeping it cool between batches.

Raspberry and Chocolate Granola

Granola is one of my favorite healthy treats to have on hand for snacking. I never completely trust the store-bought kind though.  There were always all those stories about how people think they are eating something healthy but it is actually loaded with fat and you'd be better off with a candy bar.  My granola has fat in it as well, but I feel better knowing exactly what is included.

My mom had something like this for chopping nuts when I was little and I loved it so much, I had to get one.

I have a standard recipe that I follow with general categories.  This is my latest favorite version though.  It is in weighted measure which I know some people hate.  I really think it works best for things like this though.  I put the big bowl on my scale and re-set it after each addition.

This flax seed mixture turns into nutty clumps in the granola.

I like this mixed with silken tofu that I blend up into a yogurt-like think but it is just as good with a little almond milk.  And of course I add chocolate chips because a snack isn't a snack without chocolate!

Raspberry and Chocolate Granola

3 tbsp ground flax seed

3 tbsp water

280 g old fashion rolled oats

80 grams chopped walnuts

50 grams raw pumpkin seeds

20 grams sesame seeds

20 grams sliced almonds

30 grams unsweetened shredded coconut

2 tbsp vegetable oil

3 tbsp seedless raspberry jam

3 tbsp agave nectar

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

sprinkle of salt
1 tsp almond extract
60 grams chocolate chips (I was just thinking that chocolate covered dried cherries would be really good!)

Mix the ground flax seed and water.  Set aside for 15 minutes.

Mix remaining ingredients except chocolate chips together in a large bowl.  Add the flax seed mixture.  Mix everything together with a fork and spread it on a parchment lined baking sheet.  Bake at 300 degrees for 30-40 minutes, stirring every 10 minutes.  Allow to cool then stir in the chocolate.  Store in an air tight container at room temperature.

New Goal

One thing I know about myself is that I'm very goal oriented.  Lately I've had a lot of headaches and problems sleeping and just generally not feeling well.  A big reason for this is that I have a stressful job that only gets more stressful at year end.  But I think another big issue is that I haven't been exercising.  I keep wanting to get back into it but then I'm so tired, I decide not to. That makes me even more tired and it gets into a never-ending circle.

This morning I managed to get on the treadmill for 30 minutes.  I had planned to just walk but then a good song came up and ended up running for 5 minutes in the middle of it.  Of course, today is Sunday so I have more time to fit in a workout.  The problem comes during the week.

That is why I've decided to set a specific exercising goal from now to the end of the year.  I thought it would work best to set it as a weekly goal so that I have some flexibility in my week.  I went through several ideas but I've decided to keep it simple and aim for 2 hours total exercising during the week with at least 4 miles of running.  It doesn't sound like much but it is way more than I have been doing.

I'm going to monitor my time from Sunday to Saturday so each Sunday I'll post my results for the week.  I'm hoping this will get me back in the habit and then I can set a new goal after the new year.

Garlicky Butternut Squash with Pasta

Another recipe.  I'm still slacking on my exercising but at least I'm eating well!  This was the first way I ever had butternut squash and instantly fell in love with it.  Bill and Kayleigh have been a little slower to warm up to it but Bill is starting to enjoy this recipe.

I've heard that you don't have to peel butternut squash but I always do.  There have been a few times that a little bit of peel gets left on accidentally and it is edible but I don't like the texture of it.

This recipe is really good if you can get the butternut squash a little crispy but don't worry if it starts to get mushy.  It still tastes good.

Garlicky Butternut Squash with Pasta

3 tbsp olive oil
4 cups peeled and diced butternut squash
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground sage
1 tsp dried parsley (if you have fresh, use about 1/4 cup)
salt & pepper
1/2 cup water
1 pound pasta (penne, rotini, and farfalle are my favorites)

Cook the pasta according to the package.

Heat the oil in a large, non-stick skillet over medium-high heat.  Add the butternut squash and cook for about 5 minutes, until it starts to brown.  Toss it and cook 5 more minutes.  Add the garlic and spices and cook 2 minutes.  Add the water, mix everything together, and cover the pan.  Reduce the heat to low and cook 15 minutes.

Add the cooked pasta to the butternut mixture.

Kay's Pumpkin Cupcake with Cinnamon Frosting

Last year for Thanksgiving, I challenged Kayleigh to make up a new cupcake and this is what she came up with.  We all enjoyed them so this year I had her make one batch for a meeting at work and Bill had her make another batch for his bowling team.  They are delicious - and vegan!

Cupcakes:

1 cup canned pumpkin

1/3 cup oil

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup almond milk

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup flour

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix together the pumpkin, oil, sugar, milk, and extract.  In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients.  Put the dry ingredients in with the wet.  Stir with a fork until combined.  Fill up cupcake liners half way and put in the oven for 22 minutes.

Frosting:

1/2 cup vegetable shortening

1/2 cup margarine, softened

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tbsp almond milk

2 tsp cinnamon

Beat together the shortening and margarine.  Add the vanilla.  Add the cinnamon.  Slowly add the sugar, about one cup at a time.  When the sugar is completely added it will look dry.  Add the milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy.  Store covered with a damp cloth in the refrigerator until ready to use.  If you are piping it, let it come to room temperature.

Kayleigh used a Wilton 1M open star tip for the cupcakes pictured.  Any large open star tip will work well according to her (this kind of decorating is beyond me!).

Starting over

This is going to be two posts in one.  I'll start with what I had planned but then I have to end with some bragging since Kayleigh just walked in from her school sports banquet.

First things first though.  I have been slacking like crazy with my workouts.  I had convinced myself that running around at cross country meets and being generally active would keep me in shape.  I was wrong!  Tonight since Bill was on a bike ride and Kayleigh was at her banquet, I decided I should work out instead of my normal sit-on-the-couch evening routine.

I started with a basic 10 minute ab workout that I used to do like it was nothing.  Just a minute in, I knew I was in trouble because it was hard!  Then I went down to the treadmill.  I walked for 5 minutes, ran for 10 and then walked 5 more.  After how my workout started I was really worried about running but it felt great.  It was hard but I actually ran faster than I thought  I would and generally felt good throughout.

The best part is knowing I actually did something worthwhile tonight.  I'm going to have to remember this feeling and do this more often.

Kayleigh with her hair down.  She NEVER has her hair down!

Now on to Kayleigh.  She did so good in Cross Country this year.  For the last two years she had been the slowest on the team by quite a bit.  She tried so hard and she was slowing improving but then this past summer she made a huge leap forward.  The team had a lot of new members this year so she had to compete to make varsity, which she did.  That earned her and "M" which means she gets a Letterman's jacket as one of her presents this year.

She also got a patch for Scholar Athlete.  She should have had this every year but she always had one class that would cause her problems and drop her GPA just below the required 3.5.

But the one I'm most excited about is the "Most Improved" award.  I was hoping she would get this but I wasn't sure how much the other girls improved this time.  When her coach announced this award he said "This runner knocked 5 minutes off her 5K time.  You may not understand what that means but it is a really big deal."  I'm ridiculously proud (and happy I ran tonight or I'd have felt extra lazy!).

Happy Memories

Guess where we were last weekend!

Kayleigh was on fall break so right after cross country semi-state on Saturday, we left to spend a few days in Bloomington.  Up until a year ago I never really thought much about trying to persuade her to go to the same school as me but then she decided to major in Marketing.  Seriously, if you live in Indiana and want to major in business, you go to IU, right?  She has been hesitant to even consider it though mainly because she wants to follow her own path.  But the great thing about such a large school is that you can make it whatever you want.

So I decided to win her over to IU by taking her to visit the campus in the fall.  It is beautiful down there all year long but in the fall, the campus outdoes itself.  We were hoping to go for a run but never found time to fit one in.  We did plenty of walking though.

Apparently Kayleigh has never seen a chipmunk in real life.  Lucky for her, there must have been a chipmunk convention going on while we were there.  We couldn't turn a corner without seeing them!

I was actually a little nervous about the visit.  I have such great memories and I was afraid that seeing the campus again might tarnish some of them.  It has been about 21 years since I have been there but I immediately felt and home and remembered my way around just fine.  I loved it.  I felt like I got to go back in time for a few days.

Kayleigh seemed to like the campus and had a good time walking around Bloomington but she certainly wasn't going to act too excited!  She bought plenty of IU items though so I'm hopeful.  We'll just have to see.

One of the shocking things that has changed about Bloomington is all the vegan options.  I became a vegetarian while at school.  I started researching it my sophomore year (which wasn't so easy before the Internet!) but had to wait until my junior year to actually change my diet because it would have been impossible to be vegetarian in the dorms.  Now not only does Bloomington have a vegan restaurant (which we tried to go to but it was always packed), there were vegan options at every restaurant we visited.  It was fantastic.


 On Sunday we went to Scholars Inn Bakehouse for lunch.  We first went to The Owlery but didn't want to wait 45 minutes.  This restaurant was just down the street so we decided to try it out.

I got this veggie sandwich.  It was good.  Overall this place reminded me a lot of Panera.  My husband was quick to point out later that they sponsor a local bike racing team.

 After walking around for hours and hours, we decided to grab some ice cream before heading back to the hotel.  Is that vegan ice cream?  Yes it is and it was delicious!  We got this from Hartzell's where the people were unnecessarily rude but the ice cream made up for it.

 On Monday, I wanted to walk through the campus so Kayleigh could see how crowded it is during classes.  Unfortunately it was so crowded, we couldn't find any parking spaces and it took us forever to just drive around the outside of the campus.  So instead we went back downtown.  Kayleigh went to a running store and then we grabbed some soup at this restaurant to eat back at the hotel while we packed up.



Kayleigh's soup is the very non-vegan chicken tortilla but I got lentil spinach.  The portions were so large that I had half mine left over for lunch at work on Tuesday.









I really hope that Kayleigh ends up at IU so that I have an excuse to keep visiting for 4 years.  I forgot how much I loved it.  It is a long drive but completely worth it.

Apple Pie

Bill and Kayleigh both have work and school today but I got half day off for the holiday.  I had planned from the beginning to go grocery shopping this afternoon.  It seemed like a good idea to leave that until today so that we could do more fun things on the weekend.  I finished that pretty quickly since the store was deserted and thought I would come home, go for a run, and then bake a pie.  Next thing I knew, I had completely skipped the run and went straight for the pie baking.  Oh well, can't win them all!  Actually the pie will be done at 4 PM so I have time to get the run in.  I have a sneaky feeling it won't happen though.

This is a plain old apple pie but we love it.  The filling part is from Lee Bailey's "The Way I Cook" although it is a really basic recipe that I probably could have come up with on my own.  He calls for butter (or margarine in my case) to be placed on top of the filling but, frankly, I forget every single time so I figure it isn't necessary.

My mom gave me the pie crust recipe when I went away to college.  The funny thing is every time she has pie at my house, she always says, "I have to get your crust recipe"!  She swears hers never tastes like mine. I posted the crust recipe back in June but I'll repeat it here so you don't have to go look for it.

Apple Pie:

Pie crust:
2 2/3 cup flour
1 tsp salt
3/4 cup oil
6 tablespoons non-dairy milk

Mix together the flour and salt.  In a separate bowl, whisk together the oil and milk.  Add to the flour mixture and stir with a fork.  Cut in half and roll the crust between wax paper.

Place the rolled out crust in a pie plate.

Filling:
4 cups peeled and sliced apples
1 cup sugar (*see note below)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Zest of half a lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice

Mix all filling ingredients together.  Place in the pie crust, heaping slightly in the middle.  Roll out the second pie crust and place on top.  Crimp the top and bottom crusts together.  Cut a few slits in the top crust to let out the steam.

Bake at 450 degrees for 10 minutes.  Lower the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 30 more minutes.

NOTE: I usually cut the sugar in half when I'm using regular sugar.  This time I used coconut nectar though, which seems to be much less sweet so I used the full cup.