Excuse me.

Exactly like. Is.

So last Friday, my manager/the cook was like "Hey, you want some apples?" And I was like "the hell you talking about, B?" And he was like "These are spotty as **** and we're not gonna sell em, so take some home." Dude already had a damn CASE of them he was carrying out to his car. He left me a bag of like 20 apples. TWENTY APPLES.

What am I gonna do with twenty damn apples?

Well this morning, I cut one up (removing the bruised and weird parts) and had it with yogurt, granola, and cinnamon for breakfast.

This evening, I buckled down and cut up at least 15 of them (had to just throw a couple away). Thinly sliced, peeled, and cored. I had decided to make a bunch of apple pie filling to freeze and save for later. I won't know how this actually works until I feel like making crust and baking a pie, but for now, this idea is awesome.

How I made my filling:

• 14-15 damn apples (thinly sliced, mostly peeled... don't be too anal with it, there was still some peel left on mine, idgaf, it's "rustic," k?)
• Zest and juice from 2 Meyer lemons (I think I only zested 1 1/2. All the juice, though)
• 1 1/2 cup Z Sweet (natural sweeteners, less bitter than just stevia imo)
• 1/2 cup white spelt flour
• 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp cardamom
• Probably 1/4 cup of agave nectar (I just sort of swooped it around on top of the apples) and a couple tbsp of raw honey. Do it to taste. I used the Z Sweet for most of the sweetening (0 calories) and the agave and honey for a brown sugary flavor.

What you're gonna do is toss the apples with the lemon juice, zest, agave, and honey. In a small bowl, mix the dry ingredients together and then coat the apples with it. Toss until it's evenly mixed. Then, get a pie plate and put a gallon ziploc bag in it... or, you know, big enough to fit your pie filling in. Scoop some filling in until you've filled the plate, seal it up, and put it in the freezer.



I ended up with 3 pies from this. If you want fewer pies (why?), or if someone hasn't randomly handed you a giant bag of apples, adjust the recipe accordingly.

I ate a couple of the coated apple slices (for science), and I gotta say... unless something goes horribly wrong, these are going to be damn good pies. The cardamom makes it special, and the ingredients I used will make it a healthier (or maybe just less UNhealthy) pie, so there will be less guilt (not that I ever feel guilty about pie). I think this will be a great idea for upcoming holidays when I'm already cooking so many other things, that cutting up a bunch of apples will just seem like complete and utter horseshit.

So anyway! Hope this helps in case you ever have too many apples!