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!

Maple Walnut Apple Crisp

Today was my oldest daughter's first parent accompanied field trip.  We went to Erie Apple Orchard and got to pick apples, pick out a pumpkin, go for a hay ride, see how apple cider is made and of course eat cider and donuts.  The sun was trying to peak out after days of rain and the air was crisp as it should be in fall.  It was a great start to the many field trips to come and made us all want a nice warm yummy fresh apple crisp.  Here is our family's favorite recipe.  After trying Maple syrup I don't think I'd go back to sugar on the apples, it's so good!  And it's even good enough you don't have to top with ice-cream, although we often do

Recipe Modifications

• This recipe is from Cooking Light so it's still yummy but light.  Well I take away a bit of the light because I love the topping so I use 1 1/2 the amount the recipe calls for
• I am eating milk free so I substituted Fleishman's unsalted margarine for butter
• I never measure the apples I just fill up my pie plate all the way to the top.  I also eye the maple syrup and let the girls sprinkle the cinnamon.  You don't need allot of syrup and we always use real Maple Syrup
• Make sure you really work the crumple until all the ingredients combine into a nice true crumble.  There shouldn't be allot of loose sugar and flour.  For some reason it took me years to learn this!  And buying a cheap pastry blender is so much easier than using the double knife method
• You can use many types of apples for this.  Most fruit markets will suggest of have signs for apples that are good for baking

Ingredients

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup regular oats

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 cup chilled butter or stick margarine, cut into small pieces

3 tablespoons chopped walnuts

7 cups sliced peeled Rome apple (about 3 pounds)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Recipe

This recipe comes from my favorite source Cooking Light. Not diet food, but food that is conscious of health without losing any flavor. Food for life! 

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