Old-School Crunchy & Gooey Apple Crisp

Black-eyed peas and greens are mandatory for New Year’s Day in the South. Yes, we had them yesterday with cornbread. I wasn’t going to post yet another recipe when the internet was filled with black-eyed pea recipes, but my concoction was SO good that the Official Recipe Taster kept saying,”You really should post this,” as he went for seconds and thirds. Okay, but not today. The following recipe is what I made for dessert! Hey, it has fruit! It counts as healthy, right? 😉

Old-School Apple Crisp

Approximately 5 pounds of apples (I used 9 small-ish apples)
Note: As apples have the highest pesticide levels of all fruits, seriously consider organic apples for this recipe.

Grated zest of one orange and the juice from the orange
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

Topping:
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks butter, melted (1 cup)

Grease a 9″ x 13″ baking dish with butter. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Cut the apples into quarters and remove the centers. Cut the quarters into chunks of approximately one inch. There is no need to spend time on fancy slicing as the apples are going to turn into one big luscious gooey mess anyway. Don’t peel the apples either. I used apples I got on a discount from the organic market that were marked down from slight bruising. They were inexpensive and perfect for this recipe! Put the apple chunks into a large mixing bowl.

Pour the 1/2 cup of sugar, the orange zest and juices and cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger on top of the pile of apple chunks. Gently stir to combine and dump the whole mess into the prepared baking dish. Spread them into a (mostly) even layer.

Wash out the bowl and dump in the sugar, brown sugar, flour, oatmeal and salt. Mix to combine. Pour the melted butter over the top and using a large spoon, mix together until combined. The mixture will form clumps around the oatmeal. Using the spoon or even better, your clean hands, sprinkle the oatmeal mixture over the top of the apples in the pan. There will be enough for a decent 1/2″ layer of the crunchy crumbly bits.

Bake for an hour or until the top is browning and the apple juices are bubbling up through the crust. For extra yum, try serving with vanilla ice cream. Nomnomnom!