Pear Crisp

Nowadays everybody has some sort of restrictions with their diet nut free, gluten free, dairy-free, sugar-free.... flavor free.

I was at a church meeting a few weeks ago with some ladies and one of them made pear crisp for dessert(to go with the lesson, of course). As soon as I walked into the building I too a huge whiff and my mouth started watering like I was one of Ivan Pavlov's dogs!

Core the pear as pictured

Dice

toss in coconut sugar

I sat throught the entire activity finding myself being distracted by the heavenly smell. When the closing prayer was said I had to restrain myself from jumping up and shoeling some and it tasted just as amazing as it smelled!! The sad thing was that we had some men there and one of them was kind of excited to try, but before he stepped up to grab a bowl he asked about the ingredients. He said that he couldn't have sugar and he couldn't have dairy. So after being told it had butter and sugar in it and so he walked away obviously dissappointed that couldn't eat any.

I make healthy recipes for myself all the time. I try to sub out some of the not so great ingredients for something that's a little bit healthier maybe not the healthiest but I want to try and keep a bit of flavor and things so it's kind of hard to find that balance, but anyways the other day with my clients we were talking about finding good and healthy substitutes for making recipes healthier and I thought it would be appropriate to share my healthier pear crisp.

So, I grabbed my Better Homes and Gardens Cookbook that I got as a wedding present and I looked up the recipe for fruit crisp. I followed it as a base, you can find the recipe below.

Now, it's a general rule in my house head that I try and make things healthier. My husband knows this, so whenever I make dessert especially, he is always painfully aware that it is healthy. This time he didn't even ask what I made it with (it was that good!) That, or he was feeling nice that night.

One of my favorite ingredients that I used in this recipe is something that I've been experimenting a little bit more with and that is coconut sugar.

Coconut sugar is extracted from the coco flower. It is also a low glycemic food it will not and does not affect your blood sugar like normal table sugar or processed sugar will so it's great for diabetics. However it is NOT a health food!!

It's better for you with trace nutrients but, I still wouldn't recommend like eating it by the bagful but it gives that really great deep flavor that you get from brown sugar, so that's what I usually substitute it for.

It does its job well, I also made a pineapple upside down cake which you can find here next week. If you are on a journey to make your lifestyle and your lifestyle your family healthier then comment below with your favorite substitutes and feel free to share a recipe or a link to the recipe that you have made healthier exclamation point

Here are the subs I made:

granulated sugar  --->  coconut sugar
brown sugar  --->  coconut sugar
all purpose flour  -->  almond flour
butter or magarine  -->  coconut oil

And here is the Full recipe!

Pear Crisp

Ingredients

• 5cups diced pears
• 1/2cup regular rolled oats
• 1/2 + 2 TBScoconut sugar divided
• 1/4cup almond flour
• 1/4teaspoon ground cinnamon
•      1/8teaspoon ground                        nutmeg and/or ginger
• 1/4cup melted coconut oil
• 1/4cup chopped nuts or flaked coconut(optional)
• Vanilla frozen yogurt (optional)

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Core and dice pears. Place fruit in a 2-quart square baking dish. Stir in the 2 Tbs coconut sugar.
2. For topping, in a medium bowl stir together oats, remaining coconut sugar, almond flour, and spices. Using a fork, stir the coconut oil into the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in the nuts. Sprinkle topping over fruit.( Double the topping if you are partial to that crunchy crumbly fantastic-ness like me.)
3. Cover with foil and bake about 40 minutes or until fruit is tender and topping is golden. If desired, serve warm with ice cream.

Adapted from BHG(original recipe)