The Week That Wasn't

I'm back. Maybe you missed me here. Maybe you thought I was on vacation or doing something fun, which had been the original plan. (I missed the annual "beach girls" weekend.) The week before last, I was at Mommy's helping with all of their sick ones. As I drove down there, I had a quick phone chat with Jessica and told her I was heading into the "hot zone."

After a week they were all better and I headed home. I walked into the house from the three hour drive home and parked my suitcase and crawled into bed. One of those nasty bugs had come home with me. So for the next 10 days, I did nothing but hang out on the sofa, snuggled under a blanket. I didn't cook a thing. I didn't touch any knitting. For the most part, I didn't even get dressed. I slept through most of the TV shows I thought I'd watch.

The doctor that I saw agreed with the pediatricians that treated the granddaughters (they made several trips)—this winter was an unusually rough one for sicknesses like flu, pneumonia, bronchitis, and such. If you escaped all of that, be thankful.

Well, things are getting back to normal. One of the first chores I did yesterday was to clean out the refrigerator and take stock of what was left. I had not been grocery shopping in over two weeks. What was left was milk, sour cream, a red pepper, and a lot of apples. A LOT of apples.

So last night I made a treat for Daddy-O. Meals here for the last week were whatever he could find here or something picked up in town. And our choices for takeout are slim. But he did keep us from staving. He deserved a treat.

I have an apple crisp recipe (a healthier version) that I've used for years and we love it. But I found a different recipe online that was even easier. Don't laugh, but cutting cold butter into flour and oatmeal makes me tired. This new recipe used melted butter stirred into the dry ingredients. And I only had to peel three apples and not five or six. This newer recipe is one I probably will tinker around with later. But I'm giving you just what I did last night (including the modifications I made to the online recipe.) It was delicious.

APPLE CRISP

1 cup old-fashioned oatmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup packed brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup melted butter
3 cups chopped apples
1/4 cup white sugar (or more, depending on apple tartness)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or, to taste)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease and 8x8-inch baking pan.

In a bowl, stir together oatmeal, flour, brown sugar and salt. Stir in melted butter and mix until crumbly. Put half of oatmeal mix in the bottom of baking pan. Spread chopped apples evenly over the the oatmeal mix. Sprinkle apples with sugar and cinnamon. Top with remaining oatmeal mix.

Bake, uncovered, for about 40 minutes, or until lightly browned. Serve warm. Ice cream is a nice topping.


This was so good. Not like our old favorite recipe. Daddy-O said, "This is different. The topping is more chewy." Yes, this melted butter version was easier to mix than cutting in cold butter. But I didn't end up with true crumbs like I do when I cut the butter in. The butter and oatmeal mix was more solid. So I just spread the bottom part as best I could. Interestingly, by the time I had peeled the three large apples, the crumb mixture had cooled some and I could crumble it (somewhat) over the top. I'm wondering if I didn't melt the butter quite all the way, would that make it more crumbly? And I might even try using less butter next time. And yes, there will be a next time.

Should you find yourself with a refrigerator full of apples, keep this recipe in mind. If I do other interesting things with my excess of apples, I'll let you know. Top of my to-do list today is grocery shopping. I really have to feed Daddy-O something this week besides apples.