Eggless vegan pies, baked chips, and crusts

How to Make Eggless Sweet Potato Pie

You don't need to put eggs into a sweet potato pie. Just substitute flax seed for the eggs. How you start is to put into a blender two cooked or baked medium-sized sweet potatoes and one 15 ounce can of pureed pumpkin.

Then you add about 3 tablespoons of flax seed meal instead of the usual three eggs most people put in pumpkin or sweet potato pies. Then you add three peeled ripe bananas. You add a 16 ounce can of coconut milk or about one eight-ounce cup of carrot juice and one cup of almond milk. If the batter is too thin, add 2 tablespoons of coconut flour to thicken.

Now add your favorite spices such as 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon and 1/4 teaspoon of cloves. Blend the entire mixture until pureed to a thick, creamy consistency.

You're choosing either the coconut milk and the carrot juice or the carrot juice and the almond milk. Add the liquid a little at a time to make sure your batter is thick and creamy like a thick pea soup because it has to bake into a pie and thicken more. Pie batter can be thickened with oat bran or flax seed meal or coconut flour. It depends on your choice as some people can't eat any grains at all.

Oil a 9 inch pie plate with a tablespoon of olive oil or melted coconut oil, or the oil of your choice. Then pour a cup of almond meal as your crust into the pie plate. Pat the almond meal around the pie plate until it looks like a crust. You can grind your own almonds in a dry grinder or coffee grinder or use a Vita-Mix dry grinder. Or just buy a package of almond meal such as Bob's Red Mill almond meal/flour. See, Bob's Red Mill Almond Meal/Flour, 16-Ounce Packages.

You can buy almond meal at various supermarkets or buy it online. You also can grind your own flax seeds with a coffee grinder or dry grinder or buy it online as a package of flax seed meal. Almond meal and flax seed meal are sold in health food stores and in various food markets. You can buy these products also online. See, Flaxseed Meal - Bob's Red Mill. Or check out Bob's Red Mill Organic Golden Flaxseed Meal, 32-Ounce Packages.

Almond meal and flax seed meal pie crusts

When your pie plate is covered with almond meal, which will be your vegan crust, just pour the wet mixture made up of bananas, flax seed meal, peeled and cooked sweet potatoes, and a can of pumpkin puree spiced with cinnamon and cloves into your pie plate. Your flax seed in the batter is a substitute for eggs. For example, one tablespoon of flax seed meal substitutes in baking for one egg. So you'd use 3 tablespoons of flax seed meal to substitute for 3 eggs in baking a pumpkin or sweet potato pie. This pie is a mixture of sweet potato and pumpkin.

Bake the pie at 350 degrees F. until it is solid to the touch. This can take about an hour or less, depending upon your oven. You want a solid pie, not watery. In the refrigerator the pie may become more solid as it cools. Serve chilled. Your thin crust will consist of the almond meal.

Bake those French fries using sweet potatoes instead of deep frying them in oil or fats. All you have to do is choose vegetables to be baked instead of fried and use just a dab of oil to coat the vegetables with instead of plunging the potatoes or other vegetables in a deep fryer.

Optional: You can dip your sliced matchstick-sized yams in a tablespoon or two of organic coconut flour before baking them or bake them as they are to look like regular French-fries you'd see in a fast-food eatery. Only you don't deep fry them, you bake them.

Sweet potato pie using fewer fats

Sweet Potato Chips: Baked - Not Deep Fried.

Try making chips out of sweet potatoes instead of white potatoes or use various dips and sauces with yams and sweet potatoes that you bake instead of fry. The crispy texture of oven-fried yams taste just as good as those greasy white potato French fries.

You can make baked fries from slices or 'chips' not only from yams, carrots, and other root vegetables such as beets and daikon radishes, but also from round slices of lotus root. Almost any vegetable can be turned into fries or chips by baking instead of deep frying in oil or fat.

 For example, sliced carrots and other root vegetables can be turned into chips including green vegetables such as kale. Want the recipe? See the site, Baked Kale Chips Recipe - Allrecipes.com.

Curried Sweet Potato Baked Fries

This will take you about 20 minutes to prepare and another 20 minutes baking to make a batch that serves eight. You can find another recipe without curry and tikka masala sauce at the website of the North Carolina Sweet Potato Commission.

Your first step is to clean about 5 pounds of sweet potatoes or around 7 potatoes and cut into 1/2 inch slices (julienne) to resemble the usual French fries. Only you're using sweet potatoes or yams. You don't have to peel the potatoes, just wash and clean them from any dirt, holes, bumps, or 'eyes.'

You preheat your oven to 450 degrees F. You can use foil to line your cookie sheets or other flat baking sheets. Oil the sheets with sesame seed oil or your favorite baking oil. Or spray with a nonstick cooking spray.

Put the potatoes in a bowl and cover with a teaspoon of your favorite oil, such as walnut oil, sesame seed oil, coconut oil, olive oil, grape seed oil, Macademia nut oil, or rice bran oil. Toss the 'taters until they're coated with the oil. Add any spices you like such as turmeric, curry powder, cumin, ginger and garlic, thyme, or whatever spices you'd like.

Spread the potatoes on the foil or covered baking sheet leaving some room. Don't pile any other layer of potatoes on top of the first layer--just one layer only per pan. Never mix coconut oil together with olive oil as it can catch fire, drip, and ruin the insides of your oven.

Bake until your sweet potatoes/yams slices or "matchstick" shapes are crispy and cooked. Baking time usually is about 20 minutes.

Indian style-tikka masala sauce for dipping your sweet potato fries that are baked.

 Serve warm. One cup of dip can serve two people with a handful of baked sweet potato 'fries' that aren't fried, but instead--baked.