Paleo vegan butternut squash pie, healthy

Remember when years ago we made this butternut squash pie and was completely obsessed with it? No? Well, we were. It was so unbelievably creamy. Like so creamy we would eat it in the morning, whenever we wanted dessert or whenever we were thirsty and didn’t feel like drinking water. There’s water in that cooked butternut squash.

Well, this time we decided to make almost the same pie, but to make a paleo version of it. It’s again vegan, because 1. consuming more plants is better for us than not consuming any plants and 2. because we don’t know how to bake pies that have eggs, milk, butter, meat or fish in them. Also, it’s tasty.

Now this pie, we don’t know. You know how people always say their new stuff is better than their old ones? We're not one of those people. To be honest, this pie didn’t turn as great as the last one that wasn’t paleo (there were oats in it). We didn’t make a crumble to top it and the crust didn’t make us cry tears of joy. Howeverrrrr, it was still satisfying and we ate most of it in one sitting. Not only because we hadn’t had lunch, we just couldn’t stop eating it, so we're sharing the recipe. Don’t hate mmkay? In case you want to make it, here’s the how-to.

Preparing To Make Paleo Vegan Butternut Squash Pie

The first thing you need to do is meditate for 10 minutes, so that when you go to your favorite grocery store you keep your focus. Look ice cream! And cherries in November!

No. You want butternut squash. Alright? Stay focused on the butternut squash, eye of the tiger, hug it tightly and walk out of there buying it. Don’t steal it, like we did with that snickers bar when we were 8. Or was we 28? We’ll never know.

You need a smaller one. And also check whether you have these ingredients at home – coconut oil, coconut flour, almond flour, coconut sugar, ground ginger, cinnamon, ground cloves and nutmeg from Family guy (<- like Meg from Family guy? okay, okay…as if your jokes are comedy material…).

If you don’t have these, we guess it’s time to take a hard look at yourself and realize that you’re probably not a solid paleo vegan person. After a small beat up, forgive yourself and go get those other ingredients as well. Preferably organic and more expensive than a diamond ring that is not made out of zirconia.

Got them? Now it’s time to go home and make this pie.

How it comes together

First on the agenda: dealing with the butternut squash.

You need to shave it, deseed it, chop it in teeny tiny cubes and then boil it in rainwater. Or use regular water from the tab or the tub. Now we remembered how when we were kids our grandma didn’t have any warm water in her house, so to bathe us she’d put out buckets full of water and warm them in the sun. We got nostalgic here.

While the butternut squash is being tortured in the boiling water, you get the unique opportunity to make the “crust”. Simply mix some honey, almond flour, coconut oil, coconut cream (top part in coconut milk can), coconut flour, cinnamon and a pinch of salt in a bowl until you get a crumbly mixture. Add some water – it should start to stick better together, but still be crumbly. That’s your dough.

Spread it out in a springform pan using your bare hands like an animal and flatten it out to the edges. We recommend not using too big of a pan for this pie, as the crust might turn out too thin otherwise.

Now that the squash is cooked and you’ve got your “crust”, it’s time to make the filling.

Drain the squash, add coconut cream, coconut oil, spices, coconut sugar and 1/2 tsp coconut flour. Now, you need to turn these ingredients into a baby puree. If you’re physical you can probably use a masher for this or if you’ve already become half-robot like myself – use a hand blender, food processor or a blender to turn these ingredients into satisfying baby food. We used our hand blender aka immersion blender and blended everything in the pot where we cooked the butternut squash. That’s why the cooking pot looks so dirty if you’re wondering and judging us for being disgusting.

Okay, now that it’s all silky smooth like Chewbacca’s hair, have a taste and adjust for spice and sugar – if you want. If you trust us, then proceed without tasting, but remember what your parents taught you: Trust No One.

Then spread that baby food over the crust and bake in the oven for 30 minutes. Let this thing cool off and put it in the fridge overnight, so that the baby food can turn into a creamy, satisfying filling. When you wake up, slice and have it for breakfast or if you don’t want to start your day with cake, maybe have it later for dessert. Can’t tell you what to do.

Tips

• It’s important to let the pie cool off and refrigerate, so that the texture becomes “right”, we recommend doing it for at least 4 hours, but we hope you do it overnight and we hope for you, you sleep more than 4 hours.
• If you don’t want to look at the cracks in the pie and imagine how ants probably live inside, you can chop some of your favorite nuts, mix them with honey or maple syrup (to keep it vegan!), a pinch of salt and maybe a little bit of cinnamon and put them on top of the pie before baking. This will cover the pie and become a nice topping. Now that we think about it, we definitely recommend doing this.
• Store in the fridge for up to 3 days, can’t guarantee it will be good on the 4th day.
• Instead of coconut sugar you can use soaked and pureed dates, maple syrup or honey (vegetarian version) – it will give the pie a different type of sweetness.
• This is probably not a pie, but it’s satisfying anyway. Can’t tell you why this information is a tip.

Now we present to you: the actual recipe.

If you do make this pie after the seductive infomercial and the highly professional tutorial, we hope you like it. Seriously make the topping as explained under “tips” so that the ants don’t start a family inside those cracks. Okay, if you do make it – let us know how it was and whether you have questions.