Chasing Lovely: Dessert Diaries: Apple Crisp

To say I've been on a cooking rampage would be an understatement. Life on the road had me cooking in other people's kitchens and eating out a lot. So now that we're back in Nashville, I figured I would share some of the goodie's I've been stirring up lately!

A couple weeks ago we were in Georgia—playing a house concert, doing an interview for Mountain Country 94.5, playing at the Shady Days festival in Gay, and stayed an extra day to do the open mic at Eddie's Attic. While perusing the Attic's menu, mom spotted a delicious-sounding apple crisp, and had her heart set on ordering it.

I tried to deter her, as I remembered the bag of apples in the fridge at home were close to going bad. "I can bake an apple crisp at home that will be delicious, Ma. No need to get one tonight!" It was the perfect excuse to use up the rest of the apples.

See, there is nothing worse than picking out the perfect bag of apples, taking them home, only to take that first refreshing bite—and it's mushy. Maybe mushy is an exaggeration. "Soft" might be a better description. Either way, the anticipation of that first crisp bite is completely lost, and suddenly your day goes from good to bad when you realize that you gotta eat the whole darn bag. #FirstWorldProblems

Even though Mom ordered the apple crisp (which I helped myself to a hearty half of), I still baked the dessert when we got home!

I experimented with peeling these apples a few different ways. First cutting them in fourths and then peeling them, then chopping them down to the final size before getting rid of the skin, only to realize that it's best to just peel it as a whole apple and then chop it down to size.

Other than that, the instructions are pretty straight forward, so here are some pictures to make sure you're doing it right, or just to see how mine turned out!

Sauce mixture getting nice an bubbly! It's best to use a wire whisk when completing this step!

Layer of oatmeal crumble mixture on the bottom of a greased pan followed by the sliced apples followed by...

...the bubbly sauce you cooked up! DON'T FORGET THIS PART! Not like I almost did or anything... psh. scoff.

Then throw the other half of the crumbly mixture on top and it's ready for the oven!

Drum roll please......

The family loved it. It was the perfect start to the fall season. I knew it was a success when we had eaten it all and then my mom goes, "I want MORE apple crisp!" with a child-like smile on her face. Mission accomplished.

This is my mom's go-to apple crisp recipe. It comes from a cookbook compiled by the Catholic church ladies in Pocahontas, IA (my dad's hometown). So thank you to Ms. Carol (wherever you are) for the delicious dessert—and thanks to my mom for discovering it amongst the hundreds of pages!