Eating Out Less ~ Eating Home More

When you cook well, there's nothing better than a home cooked meal. Contrary to popular belief, I like to cook and am fairly good at it given a recipe to follow. Combine that with Bil's excellent skills in the kitchen, there's no reason for our dinners to fall short on taste. We used the last of the tomatoes from my mom's garden on some sauce and made eggplant parm this week and chicken parm last night. Bil and I aren't big pasta people so we had the parm straight up with some sliced wheat bread. It turned out good and my friends at Eastern scored the leftovers.

I wasn't satisfied with stopping there, I decided to find an apple crisp recipe to use up the macs that were going soft from our previous weekend's excursion. I also happened to have all the ingredients at home (minus the fresh orange and lemon juice, I used store bought & therefore omitting the zest). It turned out delish and was super easy so I'll share with everyone.

Old Fashioned Apple Crisp

Ingredients
5 pounds McIntosh or Macoun apples
Grated zest of 1 orange
Grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

For the topping:
1 1/2 cups flour
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 pound cold unsalted butter, diced

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9 by 14 by 2-inch oval baking dish.
Peel, core, and cut the apples into large wedges. Combine the apples with the zests, juices, sugar, and spices. Pour into the dish.

To make the topping, combine the flour, sugars, salt, oatmeal, and cold butter in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until the mixture is crumbly and the butter is the size of peas. Scatter evenly over the apples.
Place the crisp on a sheet pan and bake for 1 hour until the top is brown and the apples are bubbly. Serve warm.


The food critics at Eastern loved this one too and took home some leftovers for breakfast.

Enjoy!!