Shirtless Chef – Getting the Blues for Pie

Local fitness enthusiast Jason Murphy remakes favorite meals of his youth into healthy dishes. See the full list of his recipes at www.mysaline.com/shirtless.

I used to love junk food. I especially loved all things Hostess…didn’t really matter what was in the box, I would empty it in a couple of days. I worked with a small landscape and yard mowing outfit as a teenager. We’d have to stop at a gas station to top off all the tanks every morning, and I’d always grab one of those Hostess Fruit pies and a coke to eat on the way to the first job. Breakfast of champions, right? No wonder I always felt horrible throughout the day. I was overloading my liver and pancreas with more refined sugars and chemicals than they should see in a month, and I was doing that almost every day. Counting steps during the day is all the rage now. If Fitbits had existed then, mine would have had a meltdown trying to keep up with all the steps I took mowing 15 yards a day, building out landscape plans, and then doing a boxing workout at night. Yet I was always flabby and soft in my midsection, despite having the extra metabolism of a 16 year plus all that activity. Loose in the cage, you could say. My future Mother-in-Law saw me with my shirt off during that time, pointed out the spare tire hanging off my midsection and told my future wife “Oh, you don’t want to marry him. If he has that now, he’s going to be really fat as an adult.” I remember how that made me feel, but back then I just thought that was my body. I had no idea when it came to nutrition or how eating and drinking all that sugar affected me. Looking at the label on those Hostess Blueberry pies, just one has 480 calories, 21 grams of fat, and 70 whooping grams of carbs. Add in the 39 grams of sugar from the can of coca-cola, and I was consuming more carbs in that so-called meal than I do in over 3 and 1/2 days now. These pies are also loaded with scary chemicals and preservatives, not to mention the fruit is treated with sulfur dioxide. Fun! If I had known then what that was doing to my body and just cut that out, I probably would have had a Brad Pitt Fight Club body with all the manual labor and working out I was doing. Instead, I looked like one of those guys you’d see getting arrested shirtless on an episode of Cops.

I just found out that Hostess doesn’t even make the Blueberry pie anymore. Only the apple flavor is still around now. That’s ok, we can make a replacement using real fruit, coconut flour, and monkfruit to sweeten things up, and leave out all the refined carbs and scary industrial chemicals. Heck, we can even use a bit of cream cheese and class the joint up a bit. This was my first attempt at inventing a recipe for these pies, and I was pleased with how it turned out. Did it exactly copy those old pies? No. It ended up being more like a toaster pastry than one of those heavy, gooey, sugar covered deep fried love handle makers. Is it pretty? No. But we are going to cover it with our own version of icing, so no matter. Was it delicious? Yes. Did it hit the spot without making me look up how much insulin costs these days. Absolutely. I might do some research and make a sequel to this article if I find a way to make a closer copy-cat of those pies, if it can be done. For now, this pie will do just fine, and the only spare tire you will have is the one in your car.

Blueberry Turnover Pie:

Ingredients:

3/4 cup coconut flour

1/2 cup grass fed butter

2 pasture raised chicken eggs

1 1/2 tsp Stevia in the raw

1/8 tsp sea salt

1 pint organic blueberries

2 tbsp powdered monk-fruit sweetener plus 2 tsp ,divided

1/2 package grass-fed cream cheese

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1/2 cup powdered monk-fruit

2 tbsp almond milk or hemp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

Wash the blueberries and place in a saucepan over medium heat:

Stir often, and cook until the berries start to give up their juice. Once the juice is starting to cover the bottom of the pan, add 1 tbsp of monk-fruit sweetener and stir constantly until it is dissolved:

I use a potato masher to bust up the berries, twisting and turning to get a good consistency:

Simmer until a slow boil starts, stirring constantly. Cook down until the berries thicken up, and then remove from heat:

Beat the cream cheese, 1 tbsp of powdered monk fruit, and 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract until smooth and creamy, and set aside.

Cut the butter into pieces and place in the freezer for 5 minutes to firm up:

Place the coconut flour, tbsp of stevia in the raw, sea salt, two eggs, and butter in a food processor:

Pulse until the mixture is a sandy, crumble texture with no large chunks of butter visible:

Form the dough into a disk, place in a freezer bag, and stick it in the fridge for 30 minutes to set:

Cut the dough into 4 equal parts and flatten out with your hands into tortilla shaped disks. I used parchment paper with non-stick and latex gloves to get this done without making a mess or getting dough stuck:

Divide the cream cheese and blueberries equally on 1/2 of each crust, and then fold over. It might break, but it will hold together after baking:

Bake at 400 degrees for 10 minutes, then flip and bake 6 – 8 more minutes:

Let the pies cool completely. Beat 1/2 cup powdered monk-fruit, 2 tbsp milk of your choice, and 1/2 tsp of vanilla to make the glaze. Pour over the pies and chill for 6 hours or overnight for best results: