Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) [1] season is soon upon us again, and we cannot wait. We've been members of a local CSA for several years now, and finally this year we decided to just purchase the fruit share. Twice. We love fruit - that fruit from Hepworth Farms - so much that we decided to get twice as much.
In the meantime we rely on our local Greenmarket in Union Square. We bought so many apples a few weeks ago that we're overloaded. We do love apple crisp, though, and we've had it a couple of times already.
Apple crisp is one of the best things ever, ever! It's got crunchy and salty and spicy all rolled into one. We make it so often, but rarely tire of it, and when we have other fruit around we make several different varieties (it is great with peaches, nectarines, and plums).
This is also a recipe that is hard to mess up. If you tweak ingredients, it probably will still taste great.
Apple Crisp
- 6 - 8 apples, peeled, cored, then chopped into large pieces
- 1/4 cup water
- 2 tsp. cinnamon
- 1 tsp. salt
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 1 1/2 cups white flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 2 cups vegan butter
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Grease a large baking pan, and then add your chopped apples as they are ready. I don't ever measure out a specific amount of chopped apples. I just usually add apples as I am peeling and chopping them until the pan is nearly full, but still has room for the mixture of other ingredients. Pour the water over the apples.
In a large bowl stir together all of the dry ingredients. Cut in the vegan butter, and if necessary use your hands to make sure everything is well mixed. Once it is ready, spread it evenly over top of your apples that are already in the pan.
Place the pan in the oven and bake for 40 minutes.
This is amazingly good. Every time I make it though, my husband says that I should double the topping. For him, this is the best part:
For me, though, I think that it needs a good balance of the apples and the topping. Both feel as if they are lacking something if the other is not there.
One thing that I'd like to play around with that I haven't yet is altering the sugar part. I think that the brown sugar definitely needs to stay, but there is so much of it. Maybe do 1 cup of brown sugar, and add in sweet some other way - perhaps a sweetened applesauce or mixing in a little stevia... I'll let you know how my experiments go!
