Confessions of a Liberal Puritan

I got home from teaching at about 8:30 last night and wanted to make something quick and reasonably easy that I could bring to a social gathering at work this morning, so I took a chance on adapting a long-standing favorite recipe from an old Farm Journal cookbook. Normally, I make this recipe with 2 cups of fresh (or frozen) cranberries plus 3 cups of unpeeled apple slices, omitting the lemon juice and raising the amount of white sugar to offset the tartness of the cranberries.

However, I was DELIGHTED (and so were my co-workers, who came back for large second and third helpings) by how this turned out as an apples-only crisp, using the big, old, boring, Red Delicious apples that I had in my refrigerator (they were on sale for 79 cents a pound, so how could I resist?).


Ingredients:

-- About 5 cups thinly sliced, unpeeled red apples* -- usually takes 3 or 4 large apples (Red Delicious works fine -- in fact Granny Smith works fine, too, but you don't get the lovely reddish color to the apples after cooking)
-- 2-3 Tablespoons lemon juice (depending on how juicy or tart the apples are)
-- 3-4 Tablespoons sugar (depending on how sweet the apples are, and how sweet you like your crisp)

-- 1/2 cup margarine or butter, melted in microwave or in the heating oven
-- 1 heaping cup rolled oats (I prefer old fashioned oatmeal, but quick-cooking oatmeal works fine as well -- just not quite as crunchy)
-- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
-- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
-- 1 generous pinch salt (1/2 teaspoon or less)
-- 1 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon (or to taste)
-- 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (or a generous sprinkling -- I don't usually measure the spices very carefully)
-- 1/2 cup chopped nuts (or I usually just break up walnut halves and pieces with my fingers until they're much smaller pieces)

Directions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Place apple slices in bottom of ungreased casserole dish, then sprinkle with lemon juice and white sugar.

Mix all remaining ingredients EXCEPT melted butter in a bowl, then pour in the melted butter/margarine and stir with a fork until crumbly. Spread/sprinkle crisp topping over apple slices and bake, uncovered, at 350 F for 45-55 minutes (longer cooking softens the apple peels more, but you don't want to burn the topping, so you may want to turn off the oven after 40 minutes or so and leave the crisp to cook another 15-20 minutes in the residual heat of the oven).

Serve hot or cold, and enjoy!

*I cut the apples into quarters, take out the cores and stems, and then -- if the apples are large -- cut each quarter lengthwise again, into eighths, before thinly slicing across each apple wedge to make sure that the pieces of apple and peel are very thin and not too long. This seems to help the peel to cook down even better and to impart its rosy-pink goodness to the apple filling in a shorter amount of time.

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In the interests of full disclosure, I should note that I have nothing against peeling apples -- in fact, I normally peel raw apples before eating them, simply because the raw peel irritates my allergies somehow. However, I love finding ways to cook apples without having to throw away that tiny bit of apple goodness that clings to each piece of peeling. Also, leaving the peel on imparts more pectin and nutrients, apparently, as well as giving the nice pink color to the cooked apples.