Aug 25- Aug 31 Cherry Crisp

I left last Thursday to attend a big, fat Hindu wedding in Detroit and just got back last night so there was no cooking going on all weekend (although there was a whole lot of eating going on) I was going to just blog about all that I consumed over the weekend but decided to share this recipe with you instead because I made this on Thursday morning before I left so that the kid would have some dessert while his mother abandoned him so it really is the only think I have cooked since my last post. It has fruit and fruit is healthy and there are oats and nuts which are really healthy so there is no reason that this can't count as an entree. For all I know, this is what the little rugrat ended up eating for his supper anyway.

I will be back to our regular dinner schedule for my next posting day which is Thursday.

I bought a nice, big basket of golden cherries for a song the other day and thought I might make one jar of cherry jam with them. I made that key lime ice pie ice cream and when I eat ice cream, all I can think about is apple crisp to go under my ice cream. Then I thought that a cherry crisp would be even better and one thing led to another and I made two lovely little crisps.

I liked the sound of this recipe by Alton Brown, so I used that as my base and changed it up a bit. I didn't want to use that many nuts so I used less expensive nuts and more cheap and cheerful graham crackers. I also added crystallized ginger because I love that stuff.

The cherries still had a touch of bite left to them because I only halved them instead of chopping them up and that was a very nice thing. If you want them to be all soft and totally melty, just chop them up but if you like the texture of real chunks of fruit, keep them in halves. It wasn't too sweet and I love that as well. The only downside was that once we tasted the finished product, we realized that it needed plain vanilla ice cream so it was never eaten with our key lime pie ambrosia. Actually, that means there is still key lime pie ice cream left in the fridge.

Nice.

Cherry Crisp

adapted from Individual Berry Crisps by Alton Brown

3 cups of pitted, chopped cherries

1 tlbs cornstarch

1/4 cup packed brown sugar

juice of 1/2 lemon

zest from about half the lemon

Crumble Topping:

1 cup flour

2/3 cups sugar

1 cup mixed, chopped nuts ( I did a third each pecans, walnuts and almonds)

1 3/4 cup crushed graham crackers

1/3 cup chopped crystalized ginger

1 stick cold butter, cut into chunks

Preheat the oven to 350F

To make the topping, mix all the dry ingredients together and then work the cold butter in with your hands or a pastry cutter until its all crumbly and pebbly. This will keep in the fridge for a week to use on more crisps, crumbles and something Alton calls a grunt. Whatever.

In another bowl, mix the cherries, the cornstarch, sugar , lemon juice and zest and about 1/4 cup of the topping and fill two or three 8 oz ramekins (his recipe says you can get four out of it but I used two different sized ramekins so I am not sure about that).

Top the ramekins with about 1/2 cup of the crumble topping, place them on a baking sheet and bake in the centre of the oven for about 35 minutes or until it's all bubbly and the topping is nicely browned.

Let it sit for 15 minutes before serving it.

What I love the most about this recipe is that I can keep the crumb topping in the fridge and make just a couple at a time over the course of a week or so. With just the two of us eating until Shack finishes up with this movie, I don't want to make giant desserts that will sit around, staring at me every time I open the fridge, begging me to take a spoon to them so by the end of the day I have consumed an entire dessert that was meant to feed 6.