Peanut Butter and Concord Grape Pie

Please don't shoot me! I know, I know! How are you supposed to get psyched for the Whole Foods Challenge when I keep posting these crazy delicious recipes which contain sugar???

I apologize.

But I have a REALLY good excuse this time! My concord grape vines are completely covered with beautiful deep purple grapes. This year's crop is particularly immense because Mr. Balancing Act tried to murder my grape vine 2 years ago. He pruned that thing within an inch of its life. So last year we got close to zero grapes. But THIS year, the vine showed him a thing or two! It is back with a vengeance, like Arnold Schwarzenegger! Only bigger.

I have never attempted a grape pie before in my life. Mr. Balancing Act did use the grapes to make juice one year. The process took several hours from start to finish, created grape-stained carnage throughout the kitchen, and yielded about 2 cups worth of juice in the end. I decided a pie might be a more efficient use of time and grapes.

Be warned, however, this recipe is also fairly labor-intensive. It is a very fun one to do with your kids. My fourteen-year-old daughter and I giggled repeatedly as we squeezed the pulpy innards out of grape after grape, squirting green eyeballish globs into the saucepan. I'm guessing younger kids and boys would get at least as much of a kick out of this as we did.

I took a look at some online recipes before the idea hit me to combine peanut butter with the grape flavor. The recipe I based my pie on is called Concord Grape Pie II on Allrecipes.com. I switched up a few things, reducing the amount of sugar by half, subbing tapioca for flour in the filling, and creating a whole new peanut butter topping to replace the regular crumb one. I also omitted the bottom pie crust as I prefer to eat less flour! Here is my version:

Peanut Butter and Grape Pie

Ingredients

• 4 1/2 cups Concord grapes
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup all-purpose tapioca
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
•  
• 1/2 cup old fashioned rolled oats
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/4 cup white whole wheat flour
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1/4 cup natural peanut butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).
2. Squeeze the end of each grape opposite the stem to separate skins from pulp. Set skins aside. Place pulp in a medium saucepan, bring to a boil, and cook, stirring, for 1 minute. Press through a strainer or food mill to remove seeds.
3. Combine pulp, skins, sugar, tapioca, lemon juice and salt. Pour into greased 9 inch pie pan.
4. Combine oats, brown sugar and flour; cut in butter and peanut butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over filling.
5. Bake at 400 degrees F (200 degrees C) for 35 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. 
6. ENJOY!