apples 'n oats

The other night I was just hanging out on my couch watching some Julia Child reruns when a light bulb struck. She was making a traditional French apple dessert with homemade pasty, lots of sugar and of course butter. Now, I have no idea how I got from fancy French desserts to the humble apple and oats you see pictured here but I went with it and made something very delicious. Nice juicy apples bits, sweet chewy oats and nuts all pulled together with just a touch of agave nectar spiced with garam masala. It begs to be stirred into yogurt, crumbled over ice cream or just eaten straight from the pan- hot or cold.

Starting last week a good friend and I started a 4 week refined sugar fast. We are still consuming natural sugars from fruits, vegetables and starches but have decided to cut out everything containing granular sugar. Just in case you have not read an ingredients label in a while....sugar is in everything! It was in my hummus, pasta sauce and curry paste. It's just small amounts in those things and our main concern here is basically cutting out actual sweets from out diet, but we don't do anything halvsies so here we are. Today makes exactly one week without sugar and although chocolate cake sounds really appealing, I know that it would probably just make my stomach ache, send me into a sugar high then send me spiraling down- leaving me tired, cranky and wanting more sugar. This is exactly the type of cycle we are trying to stop. Oh, and maybe to look a bit better in our swimsuits without resorting to the diet coke and cigarettes diet. I'm kidding. We are already swimsuit models anyway.



Eat this yummy goodness for breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack or for a light dinner. It's probably one of the most versatile things I have ever posted. It's also a very forgiving recipe so if you don't like garam marsala, try substituting some cinnamon and nutmeg. Or if you don't like nuts.....leave them out! Maybe add some dried fruit? Whatever goes here and I'm sure whatever you do will be tasty. Promise.












you will need these:
baking sheet or cast iron skillet for toasting oats and nuts
8 x 8 baking dish
cutting board and knife
zester
small saucepan
wooden spoon

ingredients:

4 medium organic apples, skin on
juice and zest of 1 lemon
1 1/2 C rolled oats, not the quick cooking kind
1/4 C flax seeds
1/4 C raw unsalted sunflower seeds
1/3 C raw cashews, almonds, pecans or walnuts
3/4 C agave nectar
3 T coconut butter
1 T garam masala
2 good handfuls of unsweetened coconut (optional)

pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

toast the oats and seeds and nuts on a cookie sheet in the pre-heated oven for 10-15 minutes or until nice and fragrant. you can also toast the oats and seeds and nuts in a cast iron skillet on the stove in about the same amount of time using a medium/high heat. just make sure to move them around a bit to keep from burning

lower oven temperature to 350 degrees

chop apples into 1 inch cubes and place directly in baking dish, ungreased

zest the lemon and set aside the zest. then squeeze the lemon over the apples and mix with hands to coat

in small sauce pan over medium heat, heat agave nectar, coconut butter and garam masala until everything is incorporated

sprinkle oats and agave over the apples and with a spoon mix very lightly until everything is evenly spaced

bake for 30 miutes

then sprinkle a couple of handfulls of unsweetened coconut evenly over the top and broil for a couple of minutes until nice and golden brown

remove from oven and eat as soon as you can!

serves 8-10