Feels Like Fall Flourless Apple Crisp

Tonight our family will be enjoying the sunshine and pool.  They kept it open an extra weekend after labor day, hip hip hooray!  But this morning was chilly and our local orchard has beautiful fresh apples out, so fall is on my mind.  What better bridge from summer to fall than apple crisp with sweet vanilla bean ice cream.  If you are like me you've made this many times.  Most of the recipes I see online have so many ingredients and way more sugar and topping than my fresh apples need.  So it was time to get cooking on my own.  The result was so good, I just might have to make it again next week.

This school year I am going to try to create a new recipe each week.  Looking to balance taste and health.  I'll spare anyone out there reading my recipe failures, but will share the ones we like.  And at the end of the school year I'll have some nice additions to my online recipe holder.  Enjoy the summer to fall bridge weeks!

Ingredients

6-8 medium apples sliced (use the ones marked good for pie or baking)

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

1 1/2 cup oatmeal

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup butter chilled cut into small pieces

1/2 cup walnuts or pecans coarsely chopped

Directions

1. Preheat Oven to 375 degrees F.  Lightly butter or oil an 8 inch baking dish or large pie dish.
2. In a large bowl combine sliced apples, maple syrup and cinnamon.  Pour mixture into baking dish.  You will want enough apple sliced to fill the dish but not overflowing, you still need to add crumb topping.
3. In a medium bowl combine the remaining ingredients (except nuts) using a pastry blender or two knifes until crumbly.  Keep blending until crumbly or you'll have loose ingredients that won't bake as well.
4. Sprinkle crumble on top of baking dish.  Depending on the dish you may have more than you need.  In that case feel free to eat it!
5. Bake for 45 minutes and serve warm.  Vanilla ice cream is a wonderful accompaniment.  Enjoy!