I Like My Apples Crisp!

I love this time of year! The weather is still often temperate and sunny, the leaves are changing colour, the mosquitoes are gone (although they were strangely absent this summer... very weird), and there are apples aplenty.

Yesterday the whole family went with Malcolm's preschool class to the orchard for ladder-climbing... er, I mean apple-picking. But really, climbing was the main event. Most of the kids were running from ladder to ladder, grabbing one apple from each tree.

As a bonus, Maren got to hang out (literally) with one of her preschool alumni. What fun!

Nearly as fun as picking the apples is making yummy recipes with them. I found a nice, simple apple crisp recipe for the kids to make. Malcolm loves baking and cooking, so he did the lion's share of the work, although Maren pitched in eventually.

Apple Crisp

INGREDIENTS
4 to 6 medium apples
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter

DIRECTIONS
1) Pare apples; slice thinly. Arrange slices in a greased baking dish. (Or the way they did it: don't bother peeling, chop into chunks of varying sizes, and dump them in the dish!)
2) Combine dry ingredients; mix well. Cut in butter.
3) Sprinkle oat mixture over apples.
4) Bake in a 350 F oven for 35 to 40 minutes.
5) Serve warm with whipped cream or ice cream.

'Twas a wonderfully appley crisp, for which Malcolm was quite impatient.

"It will be very hot when it comes out of the oven, so we'll have to wait a little while before we can eat it."

"Oh! I can blow on it now to cool it down!"