Gluten-Free Recipe: Peanut Butter and Jelly Pie

Frankly, I think this no-bake pie is almost as good as a handful of salted peanuts and a bowl of fruit. However, for gluten-free people who want to take something fancy and trendy to a party, or who loved peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, here's a gluten-free, no-bake pie.

Is this a vegan recipe? Technically, honey is not a vegan food. Grandma Bonnie Peters is a vegan who eschews food products made from animals' bodies, but has no hang-ups about sharing the food bees prepare and hoard for themselves. If you do, you can always substitute sugar...but then it won't be a locavore recipe in most of the United States.

Endless variations are possible. We recommend using whatever local organic produce is in season. Here and now, that would be strawberries. Scott County, Virginia, is not as well known as it could be for producing excellent strawberries...almost all year, but especially in May. So the basic recipe here is for a strawberry pie. The basic recipe can be prepared by primary school children and, theoretically, treats six people to dessert for less than $5.

Ingredients for Basic Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly Pie

Roasted peanuts (salted or unsalted, but you want oil-roasted ones for this recipe): Buy at least 12 ounces to yield 1 to 1-1/2 cups finely chopped nuts.

1 tablespoon margarine or butter

2 tablespoons good-quality pure cane sugar (we used Florida Crystals)

1 to 2 quarts whole strawberries

1-3 tablespoons local honey, or substitute more sugar

Method for Basic Peanut Butter and Strawberry Jelly Pie

1. Pick over the peanuts, as the mold that spoils their flavor is evolving resistance to the fungicides with which they've been treated. Remove any discolored nuts, or nuts to which the red inner skins adhere after roasting; this can indicate that a perfectly good nut was roasted for a few seconds too long, or that it's moldy. The Greenest way to prepare them is to pound them in a mortar with a pestle. The quickest way is to buzz them in a blender. Either way, break them up until all nuts are broken and some start to clump together like peanut butter. You may have leftover peanuts; this is unlikely to be a problem.

2. With a tablespoon, work the chopped/ground nuts together with the butter and sugar until everything starts to look fairly uniform. Press this mixture into the bottom and sides of a sprayed 9" pie pan. Clean and dry the spoon.

3. Clean the strawberries, removing green or rotten spots. (The green caps are edible and nutritious, but would make the pie taste different from regular peanut butter and jelly.) Cut them up as you clean them, or mash them with a fork, in 1/2" pieces. You need 2-3 cups. You may have leftover berries; this is not a problem either.

4. If you have Tennessee or Scott County wildflower honey, hold the jar slightly over the bowl containing the berries, dip the spoon, and stir what comes up into the berries. It will be closer to 2 tablespoons than to 1 tablespoon, and will adequately sweeten and thicken 2-3 cups of local strawberries. If you're using supermarket honey and strawberries, you may need another spoonful of honey. Add sweetening by tablespoons and taste.

5. Spread the berry mixture in the pie pan. Refrigerate while eating the main course.

Variations

1. For a tidier-looking pie that does require a little heating, warm a small jar of strawberry jam, jelly, preserves, or all-fruit spread in a small pan of warm water until the contents slip out of the jar easily. Mix them with the fresh berries instead of honey or sugar. This version of the pie will firm up when cold.

2. For a really sliceable pie, melt a small box of strawberry Jello in 1/2 cup boiling water, mix in 1/2 cup cold water (and/or ice), and mix this with the berries.

3. For a sliceable vegetarian pie, prepare Emes Kosher Gel as directed for 4 cups of gelatin dessert, using strawberries and honey in place of most of the cold water.

4. Substitute any local fruit in season for strawberries, if you like the flavor in combination with peanut butter. Virginia peanut-butter-and-jelly lovers can look forward to blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, and grape seasons. You may need to add more sweetening, a bit of lemon juice, cinnamon, even apple juice concentrate, or fruit spread to get the flavor of your favorite kind of jelly.

5. Adventurous middle school gourmets can experiment with any fresh fruit, not limiting themselves to fruits normally made into jelly and eaten with peanut butter.

6. You could also experiment with other nuts in the crust. Almond meal goes well with peaches, plums, nectarines, pears, apples, and grapes, as well as berries. (Almonds contain less fat and more calcium than peanuts.) For serious organic locavores, what about sunflower seed meal with persimmons?

7. I don't think Elvis Presley ever had an opportunity to try it, but I'm sure he would have liked the peanut crust filled with sliced bananas and chocolate chips.

8. Another way to make this pie tidier adds a few calories and subtracts a little Vitamin C, but you can spread a generous layer of ice cream, yogurt, or Rice Dreams either under or over the fruit, and freeze it. (This may make a thick, mounded-up-looking pie. Probably not a problem.)