Apple Crisp and a crisp, fall morning—just what we’ve been waiting for

I had a new cookbook and was rarin’ to go with some new ideas. I didn’t have to look further than the first recipe—a highly simple version of Apple Crisp . . . and me still with an abundance of fresh apples on hand. What’s more, these apples didn’t have to be peeled—the most time-draining portion of many apple recipes. Just wash, core, slice, and place in the dish.

The cookbook was from the Southwest Chili Peppers Nutrition Task Force and was designed to instruct people in some of the most basic ways of preparing fresh fruit and vegetables. For people who know that fresh is best but don’t know where to start, this colorful, spiral-bound volume presents one illustrated, highly simple yet interesting recipe suggestion for each item of produce.

I loved the simplicity of this Apple Crisp—loved the outcome, as well, but found I needed to increase the cooking time beyond what was specified. Likely my apple slices were a little too thick and just needed some extra oven time, but after the recommended 20 minutes, they weren’t tender. I merely covered the baking dish with a sheet of foil and let the apples steam without over-browning the topping. An extra 10-15 minutes gave them the doneness they needed. Then I removed the foil for the last few minutes so the Crisp could get . . . well, crisp.

What a good little bowl of breakfast bounty (I didn’t wait for the dessert part) on this “Fall-Seems-Here-to Stay” morning! Warmed and served with a sliver of sugar-free whipped topping crowning it, it got a Friday morning kicked off well.

Apple Crisp

4-5 medium apples (I used a combination of Golden Delicious and Gala)

1/4 cup butter

1/4 cup quick-cooking oatmeal

1/4 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the bottom and sides of a square pan. Remove the cores from the apples. Slice the apples. (Leaving the apples unpeeled adds to the nutritional value and is recommended, but some cooks might prefer to remove the peel as well.) Spread the sliced apples on the bottom of the pan. Cut the butter into small pieces and place in medium-sized bowl. Add the oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Using two knives cut the margarine into the mixture until it looks like small crumbs. Sprinkle the mixture over the top of the apples. Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes. (May need to bake longer, with a sheet of aluminum foil over the top, for at least 10 more minutes to be sure apples are tender. If you find you need to cover because of increased cooking time, be sure to uncover for a few minutes at the end to allow the topping to get crisp.) Makes about 6 servings.

Blissful, cool October days bring on Apple-Raisin Crisp

Day after day, week after week, it sits on the shelf and gathers dust--this labor-saving device that I just had to have. Recently Hubby was my conscience. He observed me as I peeled, cored, and sliced an apple the cumbersome way--with a paring knife--as I practically diced off a finger in the process.

"Why don't you ever use that thingy we paid so much for? It would be a lot easier," he intoned.

The thingy was my apple peeler-corer-slicer by Pampered Chef--a delightful little object that sits on the counter, accepts an apple pushed onto a spear, and then (as the operator twists a handle) peels, cores, and slices the apple all in one sweep. Blame it on my being left-handed or something, but I've never exactly perfected the art of using it. My apples emerge less than desired; I end up having to use a regular knife on them anyway.

But Hubby's words piqued my conscience; I was being wasteful by not giving it another try. Onto the spear went one of the four apples I was saving for a fall dessert. This time, success!

The gadget worked perfectly. In seconds I had a peeled and cored apple sliced into skinny, perfect rounds--ready to be diced for my Apple-Raisin Crisp recipe. Three more apples quickly followed. The apple peels went into a separate bowl to become ingredients for one Hubby's upcoming smoothies. All I had to discard was the very slim core and stem--great stewardship of a fruit God provided. I was so-o-o glad I tried again.

Apple-Raisin Crisp is a recipe I clipped years ago from a Family Circle magazine. Normally I disdain raisins--never my favorite things to eat--but in this dish they cook up soft and inconspicuous and add to the flavor and texture. The crisp topping is to-die-for over the mellow, succulent apple filling. And as a perfect accompaniment for these blissful, cool days of this first week of October, this easy-to-prepare dish, as Hubby says, "just tastes fall."

Apple-Raisin Crisp

Apple Filling:

2/3 cup packed brown sugar (1/3 cup if using brown-sugar substitute)

3 tablespoons flour

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 1/2 pounds Rome apples, peeled, cored, cubed

1 cup golden raisins

Crisp Topping:

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup packed light-brown sugar (1/3 cup if using brown-sugar substitute)

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1/2 cup rolled oats

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt (or salt substitute)

powdered sugar

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly coat a 7-inch-by-11-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside.

Filling: in a large bowl toss together sugar, flour, nutmeg, and cinnamon; add cubed apples and raising; toss again. Let stand 10 minutes while preparing topping. Topping: Melt butter. In medium-sized bowl stir together butter, flour, sugar, pecans, oats, cinnamon, and salt until mixture is evenly moistened and forms clumps. Transfer apple-raisin mixture to prepared baking dish. Top with crisp topping. Try not to break up clumps. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes until bubbly and apple pieces are tender. If browning too much, cover loosely with foil during last 5 minutes of baking. Let cool 15 minutes before you serve. Sprinkle with powdered sugar. Makes 12 servings.

A bubbling good use for farmers market apples--and an assuaged conscience, to boot!

Visiting a farmers market is great fun, but the challenge occurs when you arrive home: how to quickly prepare those great fruits and vegetables before they go bad.

One day last week my hubby and I drove back from Oklahoma with a truck full of goodies from the Chickasaw farmers markets we visited in Ardmore and Madill. You can read more about our farmers-market shopping in my new book, Way Back in the Country Garden--especially in the chapter "One Smart Indian."

The Chickasaw Nation, of which my husband is a citizen and an elder, provides funds to its elders so they can buy locally grown, fresh produce and learn more healthy food preparation instead of cooking canned vegetables that likely have more sodium and other additives. We love to utilize this benefit and during our trip last week visited several roadside stands and brought home some delicious-looking produce.

But how to get it all prepared quickly--especially the huge sack of apples we toted in with us?

I remembered a recipe for "Farm Apple Pan Pie" (featured below) that has been in the front sleeve of my "summer" recipe binder--yet never prepared. Do you have recipes such as this--always on your wish-list to fix, yet you bypass them again and again with a promise of "some day"? This recipe requires five pounds of tart apples--a perfect usage for this bounty of gorgeous apples that we needed to utilize fast.

While I left to visit the cemetery (Sunday 5/16 was the anniversary of my dad's passing--17 years) to put some fresh-cut roses on his grave, my sweet hubby agreed to peel the apples. Bless my dear hubby, before you feel sorry for him, please know that he used one of those no-brainer Apple-Peeler-Corer-Slicer devices that you can get through Pampered Chef. It skins the apples, peels and cores them, and slices them into tiny, delectable bites all at one time. So he zipped through those five pounds of apples in a heartbeat (and saved the skins--the healthiest part of the apple--to use in his homemade smoothies. I'll write more about that later in another blog.)

After that part, the remainder of assembling the Farm Apple Pan Pie was simple--a dusting with sugars (brown and regular) mixed with spices, an egg-yolk pastry, and placing all this in a jelly roll pan. The recipe calls for a double crust, but I used a lattice top instead (so I could watch the apples baking.) Truthfully, I had an excess of crust and apples, so by making a bit extra amount of the sugar "dusting" I had enough for a second pie in a small pie plate!

You can't imagine what a delicious dish this made! We thought we trumped the folks in Willcox, AZ, who run the Apple Cider Mill (one of our favorite stopovers on the road from Dallas to Phoenix) and serve memorable apple pies. Stopping in there for one of their homemade pies makes the last four hours of that long trip to Phoenix more bearable. But now I had one on them--my own apple creation!

Fifty minutes later out popped my Farm Apple Pan Pie--brown, bubbling, and wonderful (prepared with health-conscious substitutes such as Splenda, No-Salt, and Egg Beaters, by the way). I had used up a significant portion of my farmers-market produce; I had assuaged my conscience by preparing a long-put-off recipe; best of all, I had a spare pie to store in the freezer for another day when a homemade dessert would be handy!

Farm Apple Pan Pie

Egg Yolk Pastry:

5 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons sugar (I use sugar substitute)

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 cups shortening

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten (I use egg substitute)

3/4 cup cold water

Filling:

5 pounds tart apples, peeled and thinly sliced

4 teaspoons lemon juice

3/4 cup sugar (or substitute)

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt (I use substitute)

Milk

Additional sugar

In a bowl combine flour, sugar, salt, and baking powder; cut in shortening until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Combine yolks and cold water. Sprinkle over dry ingredients; toss with fork. If needed, add additional water 1 tablespoon at a time, until the mixture can be formed into a ball. Divide dough in half, On a lightly floured surface roll half of dough to fit a 15-inch-by-10-inch-by-1-inch baking pan. Sprinkle apples with lemon juice; arrange half of them over dough. combine the sugars, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt; sprinkle half over apples. Top with remaining apples; sprinkle with remaining sugar mixture. Roll remaining pastry to fill pan; place on top of filling and seal edges. Brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar. Cut vents in top pastry. Bake at 400 degrees for 50 minutes or until crust is golden brown and filling is bubbly. Makes 18-24 servings.