Looly's Solo Apple Crisp

No doubt about it. Looly's growing up. With a visit from the tooth fairy under her belt, it's time to start pulling her weight in the kitchen.

Last spring when she was a mere babe of 5, not the worldly, gap-toothed 6-and-a-half-year-old you see here, we took a field trip to Penzeys Spices, where Looly chose a jar of Vietnamese Extra Fancy Cinnamon. She's been waiting to make her own apple crisp ever since and apparently I've been neither accommodating nor timely in making it happen. So she did what any gap-toothed, worldly 6-and-a-half-year-old would do. She went online and printed out a recipe herself.

Look at her, hands washed, hair back, apron on, ingredients assembled, reading through the whole recipe before she starts. She's already a way better cook than her mother who has an embarrassing habit of needing to run to the store for a roll of parchment paper or a bunch of cilantro because I swear it said nothing about that a minute ago.

 And check out those knife skills. I was 25 before I knew to curl the fingers on my left hand.

Mixing the "crisp".

Watch out, Martha. Looly's in the kitchen.

Looly's Solo Apple Crisp
adapted from Simply Recipes

5-6 medium apples (preferably Granny Smiths)
1 tbsp lemon juice
1 cup brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 cup rolled oats (old fashioned or quick-cooking)
1/2 cup butter

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease a 9" x 13" pan.

Peel, core, and chop the apples into 1-inch chunks. Place them in the prepared pan. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the top.

In a bowl, stir together the brown sugar, cinnamon, and oats. Use your fingers to rub the butter into the oat mixture. Sprinkle the oat mixture on top of the apples. Bake 35-45 minutes until the apples are soft and the topping is golden brown and crisp.

Michigan Blueberry Crisp Parfaits

These three are champion pickers. They've labored over buckets of sweet tiny strawberries. They've sported scars from thorny raspberry bushes and prickly cucumbers from the garden. They've plucked peppers and tomatoes from the vine, apples from the tree, and countless leafy herbs, but for this bunch nothing beats the late summer ease of blueberry picking.

You can't go to Michigan in August without picking blueberries. In our case, thirteen pounds of blueberries. Despite Mufasa's many mumblings to the contrary, thirteen pounds would have been a perfectly reasonable amount if we hadn't been on vacation and without a way to freeze or can those succulent little blues.

As if the idyllic peninsula setting weren't enough, the berries were perfectly sweet prompting Looly to confess she felt like she was picking candy. But to say the blueberries at Buchan's Blueberry Hill were abundant would be unfair. The blueberries were literally falling off the bushes into our buckets. I picked five pounds without moving my feet. Incredible. I don't know how long the season will run but if you're anywhere near Traverse City and able, go to Buchan's. Go now.

So in addition to blueberries for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks, a blueberry crisp was an absolute requirement.

But just as northern Michigan is blueberry country, it's also pie country. Really good pie. So despite all those blueberries I simply could not help myself when a buttery crumble-topped cherry pie leaped into my arms at Grand Traverse Pie Company.

Berry dessert overload was setting in when my dear friend, Rhea, offered a most brilliant suggestion: Blueberry Crisp Yogurt Parfait. Suddenly blueberry crisp is a perfectly acceptable breakfast form.

Forget scones, muffins, and pancakes. Make me a parfait.

Blueberry Crisp Yogurt Parfait

6 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cups flour
2 cups rolled oats
1&1/2 cups brown sugar, packed
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter
2 cups plain lowfat yogurt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Toss together the berries, granulated sugar, and lemon juice.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Stir to combine. Cut butter into small cubes, add to the flour mixture and using two knives or a pastry cutter, cut into the dry mixture until nice and crumbly.
3. Place berry mixture in the bottom of a 9x13-inch pan (or slightly larger - it's a big crisp!). Sprinkle the flour mixture over the berries. Bake 35-40 minutes until the berries are bubbling and the topping is golden brown.
4. Cool completely (or eat some with ice cream while it's warm and save the rest for breakfast).
5. Spoon 1/2 cup of yogurt into 4 bowls. Top with a generous scoop of cooled blueberry crisp.

Makes 4 parfaits, with plenty of crisp to spare.