Apple crisped

Sometimes you have a good idea. Sometimes that idea is somebody else's and they tell it to you, but you can't stop thinking about what a good idea it is until it is so familiar in your head that it becomes your idea. And then you are making apple crisp and topping it with vanilla yogurt, even though you don’t like vanilla yogurt. I’ve tried to get into yogurt before – who hasn’t tried switching to plain Greek for ten o’clock snack once or twice? I just couldn’t stick with it. But after making this apple crisp, I am back on the yogurt wagon. It’s a gateway drug. Next come the Tupperware, walnuts, and honey. Ship me to Russia. First, let’s talk about apple crisp.

Over at smittenkitchen it has been proclaimed that the crisp is not just for dessert. If this is revolution, I am Heath Ledger in the Patriot. Fruit and granola? Of course this is breakfast food! The apples go juicy and soft, like apple pie filling, while the granola browns into a chewy crust (with the help of butter and honey). Less sugar, no butterscotch sauce, ice cream swapped for yogurt. I could be writing a health blog.

On a side note, I appreciated that this recipe allowed for flexibility: I didn’t have nuts on hand, I added allspice for kicks, I measured nothing, and my crisp still turned out delicious. These are ingredients you can’t mess up.

So hear me when I say, “I made an apple crisp and topped it with vanilla yogurt.” Now think about it until you have to make your own. Viva la revolution!

---

Gateway Apple Crisp (adapted from smittenkitchen)

6-ish (mixed) apples, peeled, cored and chopped

Juice of half a lemon

2 tablespoons sugar


3 tablespoons flour


1 teaspoon allspice


Freshly grated nutmeg

Freshly grated cinnamon

Salt
pinch!

4 tablespoons unsalted butter


1/4 cup honey


1/2 cup flour


2 heaping cups oats


Preheat oven to 350°F. Squeeze lemon half over apple slices. Mix in sugar, flour, allspice, and dust with freshly grated nutmeg and cinnamon for depth. Pour mixture into that 9-inch spring-form pan you bought thinking you would never use it until you realized you have no other smallish baking dish. Melt butter in a small saucepan and add honey. Combine flour and oats and melty, sticky saucepan contents. Pinch of salt! Pour this over the apples and bake until the apples are bubbling and the granola is toasty brown—about 1 hour (maybe more if your oven is like my oven and cannot regulate its temperature to cook a chicken).

A is for Applesauce

I make my own applesauce now. No big deal. No, actually: no big deal. It’s so simple, I almost don’t want to brag about it. After you make homemade applesauce, you feel lame calling it homemade—it’s like saying you make homemade ice cubes. Even if you make them in a Tetris mold.

My personal library service (that is, my sister) recently provided me with mom-favorite Laurie Colwin’s two kitchen essay compilations: Home Cooking and More Home Cooking. These books have been bedside-table staples for twenty years, and yet, in my first reading this fall, they were completely relevant to topics we continue to wrestle with as home chefs. Laurie writes about her preference for organic meats, farmers’ markets, and wholesome cooking—and she does it well. So well, in fact, that she convinced me to roast my first chicken, which, unlike my adventures in applesauce, was an undercooked exploit.

Let’s focus on my success for now: Laurie’s applesauce recipe annoyed me at first. In her own words, applesauce is “so simple to make that it almost does not require a recipe.”

I once tried to make cookies without a recipe, and I now firmly believe there are some things that you cannot wing. As a first timer, I didn’t appreciate Laurie’s relaxed attitude. “Any number of apples”? WTF, Laurie? I need answers.

But Laurie Colwin was right: applesauce is a breeze. Once you get over the seemingly lackadaisical instructions, her method is very straightforward:

1. Core and chop apples. (I use four to seven, depending on size, and I never have any leftovers.) Laurie and I agree that variety is best for flavor. I like to keep the peels on for reasons of both nutritional and indolent natures. Laurie sweetened the pot by asserting my peel-in “result will be a lovely apple pink.” Win win.
2. Put apples in pot/saucepan and add half a cup of cider.
3. Cook low and slow for about a half hour, stirring sometimes.

I deviated from the path by adding a cinnamon stick at Step 2—I recommend you do the same. Our apartment smelled like a holiday cheer factory.

I’ve made a number of batches in the last couple of weeks, all in a continuing spiral of neglect for the method. However, each batch turned out fantastic. One time I had no cider, so I added water and lemon. The next time I had no lemon, so I only added water. One time I left the heat too high, all the water evaporated, and the cinnamon stick began to burn. I added more water, reduced the heat, and ate half the ’sauce still warm on a slice of buttered toast a half hour later.

You can’t lose with applesauce. It’s the dish of champions.

Them Apples

I have three corncobs hanging on my door. I've recently driven across two states with a pumpkin in a car seat. My boyfriend, Alex, clocked me at a 6 on the one-to-crazy scale when I stopped on the quad to fill my bicycle basket with fallen leaves. He says it was my helmet and the way I was zigzagging across the paths and grass. I'm pressing those leaves in a phone book weighed down with Dickens and a few of his friends—probably Browning, you know, for posterity. What I'm trying to say is: Fall is my jam.

So I made apple pancakes. Genius really: Apple. And then in pancakes. A coworker sent me the recipe from smittenkitchen and I tried it out in Michigan last weekend for my halfsiblings' fourth birthdays.

The pancakes were pretty fantastic—apple pancakes, come on—and pretty easy to put together. I don't measure well which is why baking has always been a challenge to me, but the pancakes were forgiving of my ½ palmspoon measurement system.

I do have a few thoughts: I'd recommend grating the apples after measuring your wets and drys. We realized a little late that we were missing baking powder (a quick google told me that was the fluffing agent I didn’t want to do without) and in the time it took to run to the store, the apples—which had begun to color almost immediatley—really started to brown. Other advice includes making sure you have all of your ingredients before starting.

Also, the 'cakes definitely benefit from the addition of cinnamon. I wouldn't "perhaps" it as smittenkitchen says. The spice provides an incredible warmth and gives every bite a holiday glow. It was like eating memories. Really delicious memories.

I’ll be making these bad boys again—that’s happening. It sure is nice living in the apple basket of the country.