Crisps, Crumbles & The Like

Remember that time I told you we had 19.5 pounds of peaches sitting in a box on the countertop, softening and bruising and ripening with the frantic inevitability of a large snowball teetering atop a very steep hill?

Well.  We did.

It started with a mosquito (apparently).  This rogue mosquito (apparently) got past our fortress of insect security (and by “fortress of security” I mean “we sleep with the windows wide open”) and, a few short nights ago, found itself in our bedroom.  Allegedly, said mosquito took a liking to Ben (can’t blame it there, I suppose), and started biting.  And biting.  With vengeance.  Apparently.  As far as I’m concerned, this bit about a mosquito may or may not be true.  All I know is that I woke up at 3am to blinding light and furious swatting.  Half-asleep and wholly confused, I made a cotton-mouthed and squinty-eyed attempt to see what was the matter before muttering something meant to sound like “ok” and sliding back to sleep.

I woke up alone, the bedsheets next to me bunched, crinkled and cold.  Interesting.  Maybe Ben had woken up early and gone for a run?  Overachiever.  Maybe he’d bring me back a bagel?

I walked down the hall to the bathroom, thinking about bagels.  I opened the door and quickly learned that, no, Ben hadn’t gone for a run.  He wasn’t bringing me back a bagel.  There he was, scrunched on top of our extra roll-up mattress, which he’d wedged into our tiny bathroom.  The mattress looked more like a hammock, the way it was squished between the wall and the bathtub, all lumpy and misshapen in the too-small space, but, apparently, it had to be done.  To escape the mosquito.  Obviously.

…

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On a beautiful Saturday in October, when sisters are readily available, it’s important to go apple picking.

Not everyone can have sisters, and that’s too bad, but everyone can find a few apples somewhere, and everyone should, at least once, try to make an apple betty.

If the gosh darn gee whiz wholesomeness of the name alone doesn’t get you (I mean, come on – apple betty! Paging June Cleaver…), maybe the brown sugar shortbread base piled with spiced apples, gingersnap cookie crumbs and a wash of melted butter will.

If you think something like this sounds awesome, that’s because it is. Awesome. The shortbread is rich and warm and, thanks to the brown sugar, tastes almost like caramel. The apples roll around in a bit of sugar, ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger, get a shot of citrus juice and vanilla, and are then buried in a mess of spicy gingersnaps and doused with smooth, liquid butter, which, of course, permeates the entire betty with a round richness that’s just so good you could cry. You could cry, people.

But, instead of crying, you’ll probably ask yourself what the hell apple pie is even doing here anymore, and deftly cut yourself another slice. Of the easiest and most delicious apple dessert you’ll make this fall: a betty.

Apple Betty
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, September 2000

Since I came across this recipe a week ago, I’ve made it twice. Two times. In one week. Apple betty and I made our debut at a fun family dinner in Philadelphia, and we were applauded so thoroughly I thought I’d bring her out again to celebrate the recent engagement (!) of my dear friends Jenny and Steve. Betty didn’t disappoint on her second outing, even though I used graham cracker crumbs instead of ginger snaps.
Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 – 2 cups homemade or store bought gingersnaps

for shortbread base:

• 1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

for apple filling:

Preheat oven to 350ºF.

To make shortbread: Pulse the flour, brown sugar, and salt in a food processor until combined. Add the butter and pulse until small lumps form (the dough will not seem to fully come together, but will look sandy). Sprinkle the dough into the bottom of a 9 x 13 inch baking dish and press evenly to form the base of the apple betty. Bake in the middle rack of the oven for about 20 minutes, or until lightly browned.

While the shortbread bakes, grind your gingersnaps and prepare your filling. Place gingersnaps in a food processor and pulse until they look like bread crumbs. Peel, core and slice apples into 1/4-inch slices, and place in a large bowl. Sprinkle apples with 1/3 cup of sugar, ground cinnamon, cloves and ginger. Squeeze citrus juices on top of apples and add vanilla extract. Stir apples with clean hands or a spoon to evenly coat with sugar, juice and spices. In a separate, smaller bowl, stir together flour and 2/3 cup sugar.

Melt the 1 1/4 sticks butter on the stove top or in the microwave.

When the shortbread is out of the oven and still warm, sprinkle it with half of the sugar/flour mixture. Layer the apples, then the remaining sugar/flour mixture, and top with an even sprinkling of ground gingersnaps. Drizzle the melted butter on top of it all, and

Serves 10-12.

I live by myself. I don’t think we’ve talked about this yet, but it’s a fact that makes itself apparent all the time these days. For example, I am reminded that I live alone when I find myself singing country music at unreasonable volumes, watching Sense and Sensibility two times in a row, flinging my clothes off in the middle of the room before a shower, and eating ice cream straight from the carton (ahem. Not that I do that.) I daresay most of these activities are unsuitable when there are roommates to consider (though, I confess, I often ate ice cream straight from the carton while living with Kath in Boston. She was the best kind of roommate, in that the violation of ice cream cartons didn’t seem to bother her. Thanks, Kath.) At any rate, these days I find myself in the position of being able to engage in all of these anti-roommate activities, and I must say that I quite enjoy it. I mean, who wouldn’t want to watch back-to-back showings of Sense and Sensibility?

There is one problem, though. Though I can take my clothes off without abandon and listen to whatever music I want at whatever volume I prefer, I cannot by myself eat two full cartons of fresh strawberries from the Union Square Green Market before they go bad. I have tried, and it just can’t be done.

Enter: Emily and Casey. And JBursk. Em and Case are my two younger sisters, and they were here visiting over the weekend. JBursk, as you may remember from my faux-halibut post, is my favorite neighbor. She’s also the person with whom I spent roughly 7 hours on Thursday, watching good (read: bad) television and eating a tub of strawberries. Now, before you yell at me for spending 7 hours on a weekday watching television and eating berries, I’d just like to remind you that I am a student, and thus do not have to go to an office and “work” during the week. Which I think is pretty great, for now. (Actually, I’m not technically a student yet, but will officially take on student status this afternoon. More on that later.)

At any rate, many strawberries were consumed on Thursday, and that was only the beginning. After JBursk and I spent Thursday popping strawberries straight from the carton, there was still a sizeable mound of the red berries left on my counter. Emily, Casey and I decided to take care of that problem with something called strawberry rhubarb crumble. Thank goodness. I mean, I was thisclose to having to throw out a carton of moldy strawberries! …Whew. Living alone is nice, but that was a close call. Thank goodness for weekend sister visits, and thank goodness for strawberry rhubarb crumble.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble

Crumble. The name alone is rustic and sweet. It says “I’m unfussy yet delicious. I’m sweet from my strawberries and tangy from my rhubarb. I’m warm and comforting yet light enough for summer nights, and I’m phenominally easy to make.” Speaking of, this weekend is apparently the last weekend for strawberries and rhubarb at the Union Square Green Market, so you only have a few days left to solve your own excess strawberry crisis with a delicious crumble. Godspeed.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 cups fresh strawberries, washed and halved (or quartered, if they’re big guys)
• 1.5 cups fresh rhubarb, washed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• Sugar, to taste (the amount of sugar depends on the sweetness of the strawberries. If they’re super sweet, use less sugar. If they’re a bit tart, use more. I used 2 tablespoons for fairly sweet strawberries)
• 2 Tablespoons fresh lemon juice
• 1 cup flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• pinch of salt
• 8 Tablespoons (1 stick) butter, separated

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the strawberries, rhubarb and sugar in a medium baking dish (roughly 8 x 12). Squeeze lemon juice over fruit, and mix to combine.

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, sugar and salt. Use two forks or a pastry cutter to mix in 6 tablespoons of butter, until the clumps of butter are as small as peas in the batter. Pour the crumble mixture over the fruit in the baking dish, and use your fingers to crumble the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter over the entire dish. Bake for about 40 minutes, until the fruit is warm and bubbly and the crumble is golden brown.

Serve immediately, preferably with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream.

Serves 6-8.