Raw Kiwi Pistachio Pie

I’m a sucker for a free ebook, especially of the recipe variety! I think these email offers with a dozen online bonus gifts are the new infomercial. They get me every time – drawing me in to the point where I forget what I am buying. When the real purchase finally came in the mail, What Do Raw Fooders Eat, I admitted to myself that I better read it because who pays $39 for a thin paperback. I’ve been had again!

Not really! If I can learn anything and take my vegan diet into the raw, then it was worth every penny! I have only made it a short way into my new book and already, I’m super excited and want to implement everything!

This recipe caught my eye right away. Perhaps because I read key lime pie in my head; my old time favorite. But it’s kiwi pistachio! It’s like food color dyslexia.

So.. meat. Let’s talk about this word for a minute. When I first heard of coconut meat, I felt empowered. I was excited to use the word meat. That’s right non-vegans, we have meat too! But then, somewhere along the countless arguments about animals and the food industry, I went right back to using meat synonymously with factory farm animals. I don’t want to get caught up in a sound bite war – well, maybe I do! I think too many people separate the concept of meat from the reality of a living animal.. and then further, that they are sensitive creatures with fully functioning nervous systems.

Does anyone even know what meat is anymore? I say that for a few different reasons. First, friends tell me all the time that they don’t eat meat, they eat chicken. Second, for the burger people, meat is generally thought of as from one animal. However, I hear that burgers, for example, are often from hundreds of different cows – I even hear the rumor (or perhaps not a rumor) that horse meat is included there as well. So really, what is meat and should I even empower the word?

I guess so but what a grand task! I guess if we can grab that word and modify it, then it will show that there are options. Confuse the public! Empower vegan meats and force the non-vegan meat eaters to use the word “animal” meats. Connect where the disconnect has occurred. The vegan meats I have referenced in the past are tofu, beans, portabella mushrooms, coconut and avocado. Now guess what? As I shop in yet another favorite store of mine, Fairway in Brooklyn, looking for my recipe ingredients, I see pistachio meat.

Pistachio meat.. really? Actually, it makes sense. If I didn’t see this in the bulk isle, I would have made the worst Raw Kiwi Pistachio Pie ever. I probably would have opened by hand two cups of my shelled salt and pepper pistachios from Costco. I knew they were too good to be true. I felt like a salt addict when I ate these. I looked for unshelled and unsalted but luckily saw this bulk meat item instead. $19.99lb for my new meat – pricey, I know! We can once again thank American subsidies for making fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds more expensive than “animal” meats and GMO commodity crops like corn and soy. Before making the pie, I did a taste test: my Fairway pistachio meat vs. my salt and pepper pistachios from Costco. Shame on Costco, actually, shame on me! Our American diet loves to take a healthy food and then process it to death, literally. I’ll stick with my new meat which for the record makes an AMAZING PIE CRUST!

Raw Kiwi Pistachio Pie
Recipe from Katrina Blair

I made it just slightly off the original recipe in the book:

Crust (I doubled the original recipe to fit the pie pan)
2 cup pistachios ground in food processor
2 tablespoons organic maple syrup (original recipe called for honey which is technically, not vegan)
Press into pie pan as crust
I forgot to slightly grease the pan with coconut oil – my bad; yes it stuck!

Filling
1 avocado blended with
3 kiwis and 1/4 water (use a drop less)
(mine was a bit watery so I added a little more avocado and some ground flax to bind; also I couldn’t resist adding 2 dates- yummy!)

Decorate, refrigerate and eat up!