Friday, November 19, 2010

Apple-Cranberry Crisp


Before the topping....


This is my modified version of Apple Crisp...with cranberries and pecans.  With those special ingredients, I have classified this a breakfast treat/dessert.  Afterall fruit and oatmeal have fiber and pecans have protein right?


Ingredients

Serves 8

1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup packed dark-brown sugar...or light if you are not feeling so fall-ish

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup granulated sugar

16 tablespoons (2 sticks) melted, unsalted butter

2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking)

9-11 apples, such as Empire, Granny Smith, Pink Lady, Winesap, Gala, or Braeburn (or a mixture of), peeled, cored, and cut into slices (enough to fit into a 9 x 13 Pyrex).  I always use my handy-dandy apple-corer-peeler-slicer from Williams-Sonoma.  Can't live without it knowing I can get apple crisp into the oven buy the time it preheats...10 minutes flat.

12 oz. of frozen, sliced cranberries (Trader Joes are great)

3/4-1 cup of finely chopped pecans

fresh lemon juice from half a lemon (enough to coat apples)

1-1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar, salt, 4 tablespoos of the granulated sugar and butter.  Mix until mixture is the texture of coarse meal. Add oats, and use your hands (or a fork) to toss and squeeze mixture until large, moist clumps form. Transfer to freezer to chill while you prepare apples (If you forget no biggee).

2. In another large bowl, toss apples with lemon juice, cinnamon, remaining granulated sugar, cranberries and pecans. Transfer to a 9 x 13 baking dish, and sprinkle with topping mixture. Place baking dish on a rimmed baking sheet (this is in case you pack your Pyrex too full and it bubbles over), and bake until golden and bubbling, 55 to 65 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes before serving with fresh whipped cream.  You know you always keep a quart of heavy whipping cream in your fridge!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Day and The Life of Having Kids...

So, yes I still have been baking up a storm.  Its what I do a lot of these days.  Hopefully I will be able to post some of my newer recipes like the quiche I am working on...chard and quiche.  Such a nice combo.  Tomorrow I hope to work on the smoked salmon and goat cheese.  

Anyhow, things are a little busier the last few days.  Big sister has not recovered from her nasty cold and is on over a week of her phlegmy cough.  Brother is recovering from a sickness of some sort...and baby girl, bless her busy little heart, was running and fell on her forehead Friday night.  The bump wasn't as big as I have seen, but she bit the dust on the tile floor.  Then daddy got up with her for a little snack around 3:30 am, fed her in the dark only to realize she had something all over her face...She threw up at some point before he got her out of her crib.  Before he could realize it, she was vomiting all over the place waking me from a dead sleep....Now Dr. Laura had a woman call in last week complaining that her husband didn't get up at night to help with the baby.  Dr. Laura replied with some long monologue about women being designed to wake up to their crying baby...NOT!!!  Once those babies of mine are weaned...I tend to not wake up as fast and many times my fabulous husband wakes up first.

Sooooo, baby girl vomits a lot, and I strip her and stick her in the bath while daddy gets cleaned up and mops the floor.  I realize as I am bathing her that she fell pretty hard on her head and think, "CONCUSSION!"  Ahhhh, so I look up the info on Dr. Sears' website...sure enough its a sign.  So then I call the doctor on call who happens to be our wonderful Dr. O...who says to take her to the Med Center.  Soooo, based on advice from a previous pediatrician years ago, I call for an ambulance and off we go to the Med Center at 4:30 am...Baby girl gets the first ambulance ride and CT out of her siblings.  The boys would have been jealous to see 5 firemen in our tiny living room and two trucks out front. Once she was admitted and examined, she was sedated, had the CT scan, it was clear of fracture and bleeding and we were discharged by 9am...after she vomited one more time.  Praise GOD!  You can fall on tile and not break anything (except chip a baby tooth).  We kept a close watch on her and into the night she starts getting sick again and by the time we turned in for the night, it was after 1 am.  There's nothing like being up for 20 + hours, pregnant with a sick kid now with diarrhea.  It makes you feel like an expert parent right?  So after a moderate amount of sleep, we awoke this morning to...more vomiting.   

So being a cautious parent, we know we did the right thing but after a night of runny diapers, changing sheets and no sleep one can wonder if she really had a mild concussion...or a touch of the flu.  I guess we'll wait a day or so to see if anyone else gets sick.