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Wow! Time sure does fly, here we are at the weenie-dog-tail end of 2009. Once again, I dropped off the map in a big way and it was for a great reason.....We MOVED!! Ok, not far, only 4 blocks actually, which is a good thing because I do love me some Culver City, CA. It was time for a bigger place, our family grew last year, when little Arthur joined the mix and we have never had a kitchen we love, until NOW.
I suppose it is partly ironic that I am typing this first update in ages while away from our new home, on vacation, in cold & snowy Mammoth Lakes, CA.
Many months before the thought of moving even entered our minds, we decided we wanted to have a big spectacular New Years Eve, in the snow, with good friends, yummy food and the weenie dogs, of course.
Throw an unplanned, but much appreciated move into the mix two weekends before Christmas, and that pretty much sums up my recent absence from the blogosphere.
In the spirit of my last post, and the fact that we had to get pretty creative with our time-savers this year, here is one of my FAVORITE quick, easy and delicious time-saving desserts. When I am not mid-moving in December, I try to measure out about 4-5 Ziploc bags of the dry ingredients for this crisp- and keep them in the freezer. That way, any time, just soften up the 1/3 cup butter and use frozen fruit for a stellar homemade crisp in about 40 minutes, all prep and baking included!!
In getting ready for our trip up here, I grabbed a few apples, measured out the oats, sugar and spices into a plastic bag and noted the fresh cranberries I had frozen a few weeks ago when they were on major sale.
As I unpacked all the food and kitchen goodies I realized I totally spaced out on bringing the cranberries!! So I shot Nate a quick text and when he got finished with his last run of the day, he hit the store and brought me a can of cranberry sauce, the chunky stuff, not the gel....Hmmm, what's this? He let me know the store they stopped at was a little less like a grocery store and definitely did not have a produce section. No problem, pretty sure I can make this work AND now I have a great recipe for left over cranberry relish after Thanksgiving!!
Cranberry Apple Crisp
Inspired by a recipe from Country Living Magazine
3 Gala apples, cored and chopped into little bite sized bits
about 15oz/one container of chunky cranberry relish (the cranberry orange relish from Trader Joe's would be good!)
3/4 C. brown sugar
1/2 C. flour
1/2 C. quick oats
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/3 cup softened butter
Preheat the oven to 350, and lightly grease a pie plate or pyrex pan. In a medium bowl mix the sugar, flour, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg and butter until all ingredients are moistened/well combined.
Toss the apples into the greased baking dish and spread the cranberry sauce over the apples. Spread the sugar, oat and spice mixture evenly over the apples and cranberries and bake uncovered, about 35 minutes, until top of crisp is golden brown.
Serve with vanilla ice cream and hot coffee~ HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
