Apple Crisp - ☺♥

My sweetheart, Peggy, has been asking me to make an apple crisp now that fall weather has arrived. I noticed that I didn't have a recipe for that food item in Food Nirvana so I looked a bit on the Internet and found the one below. And it turns out to be very nice. I did make a few changes/improvements to reduce the labor and enhance the topping and the apple mixture.

Two very pleasant items to have when processing apples are an inexpensive electric apple peeler, which can easily be found by shopping via the Internet, and an apple corer/sectioner. They eliminate 90 percent of the labor and thus save time. The remaining chopping is trivial.

I like a fairly uniform topping composition so I put all of the dry ingredients for the topping into a Magic Bullet® mixer and blend them, and in the process reduce the size of the oatmeal flakes. You don't have to do that but it makes later mixing with butter easy and the topping nicely uniform in appearance and texture.

Making this dessert isn't rocket science but it sure is good when made well, served warm with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream, and maybe a freshly made hot cup of coffee.

Ingredients: (makes one 8"x8" baking casserole or about 9 generous servings)

6 golden delicious or gala apples, peeled, cored and chopped

2 tbsp. of white sugar

1 3/4 tsp. of ground cinnamon, divided

1 tbsp. of fresh lemon juice

1 cup of light brown sugar

3/4 cup of old fashioned oatmeal flakes

3/4 cup of all-purpose flour

1/4 pound stick of cold butter, diced into small cubes

A pinch of salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Put the chopped apples, granulated sugar, 3/4 tsp. of the cinnamon and the lemon juice into a mixing bowl. Stir to combine, then transfer the mixture to an 8"x8" baking casserole.

Put the dry topping ingredients (brown sugar, oats, flour, 1 tsp. of cinnamon, salt) into a mixing bowl and stir to combine. Then add the cold diced butter cubes.

You might use a pastry cutter to cut the butter into the oat mixture, using a slight downward twisting motion, until mixture resembles pea-sized crumbs. Or you can use two forks or even your hands to cut the butter into the mixture. But I suggest/recommend using an electric mixer on low to medium speed as a great labor saver.

Spread the topping over the apples in the baking dish, and gently pat the top to even it out.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until the apple crisp is golden brown on top and bubbly underneath the top.

Put the baking casserole onto a wooden cutting board and let the apple crisp partially cool.

Serve the apple crisp warm with a scoop of good vanilla ice cream and maybe a freshly made cup of hot coffee.

Enjoy!