dreary outside, cozy inside plus some minor injuries

i know there are lots of people who like rainy, gray days. once in a while i appreciate a good snuggle on the couch under a blanket while the rain pounds down outside, but for the most part rainy weather is not my favorite. telling perhaps is that the rain song i taught my daughters is "rain, rain go away, come again another day." so much for not passing along biased perspectives! :)

{sidebar: yes, i know that the rain is good for my garden, and cleans up our air, and we need it. i know, i know. but i still don't love it}

to me, rainy days equal soup and grilled cheese to eat. but sometimes that doesn't even turn my house cozy enough. my friend courtney gave me this apple crisp recipe almost ten years ago + it's a perfect vehicle for driving the drearies away. it calls for granny smith apples, but since matt and i just got a bunch of different apple varieties when we went to the philo apple farm last week, i used a mix of those apples.

if you are angling for mom of the year, (or maybe if your standards aren't quite as high, if you'd prefer to skip a trip to the ER,) don't do what i did when we made this the other night.

yes, let your child help. but no, don't trust that even though you say about 68 times not to put his or her little hands on the cutting board or near the knife that they will actually listen to you. let's just say it was an act of god that as i was industriously slicing away at my pretty apples and m simultaneously stuck her hands out to grab some of the slices laying on the cutting board that i didn't chop her ring finger off. (or you can chalk it up to my catlike reflexes if you prefer.) when i saw her fingers reaching out in slowmo and my knife going chop chop in not-so-slowmo, i froze as quickly as i could, and managed to only slice (ahem, pretty deeply) into her fingernail. i won't reenact all the ensuing drama, but there was a whole lot of blood that didn't let up (and that honestly freaked me out because it didn't let up), equal amounts wailing and sobbing, and about 400 band-aids plus some pseudo gauze (ok, it was toilet paper). in my defense the excessive use of band-aids has less to do with the severity of the wound and more to do with my daughters' collective obsession with band-aids. but i digress.

back to this recipe, which you will really like. i'm way more of a chocolate kind of girl, but this takes all the best parts of an apple pie and loads it down with crumb topping. i doubled it, because i knew we'd go through it pretty quickly. (in retrospect that was a bad idea, since i ate way too much of it yesterday, so keep that in mind as you bake this.)

after the finger slicing incident i wasn't so much in the mood for play by play photos, so these two preliminary photos will have to do; you'll have to use your imaginations for the rest of the steps and for the final product.

dreary day apple crisp

preheat oven to 375.

*4 cups peeled & sliced granny smith (or other tart/firm variety) apples

(Grease an 8x8x2 pan -or 9x13 if you double this- and place sliced apples evenly in pan)

mix the remaining ingredients together until mixed thoroughly & the consistency of pebbly sand:

* 2/3 cup brown sugar

* 1/2 cup flour

* 1/2 cup oats

* 3/4 teaspoon nutmeg

*3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1/3-1/2 cup room temperature butter

sprinkle mixture evenly over the apples 

&

bake for 30 minutes

very yummy warm or at room temperature

happy baking! here's to clear skies and injury free cooking for you & yours!