My what a day, I’ve never had 2 kids down with a tummy bug and an infant to deal with all at the same time. (I’m eternally thankful for my husband) You’d think after all the ick I’ve seen and had to clean up in the past 24+ hours I’d never want to see food again; yet, that’s exactly what I wanted – comfort food. I’ve been dreaming of this Pear, Apple and Cranberry Crisp since my friend, Sarah, shared it the other day. I didn’t have all the ingredients but I did have some pears and plums that needed attention before they ended up feeding the compost box. I didn’t have a lot of the other ingredients and ended up changing the recipe so much it basically became a new recipe I’ll share below. One day I’d like to try the original recipe without any variations as I’m sure it would have been much tastier than my concoction, though mine still satisfied the need for a healthy snack with some sweetness sprinkled in.

Fruit Ingredients I used:

2 Pears (peeled, cut into chunks)

1 Plum (cut into chunks)

2 Apples (peeled, cored, sliced and chunked)

as I write this I realize I forgot to put in my raisins, darn. You could try that.

Since I didn’t have any of the juices or zests I improvised with some lemon peel I found in my spice cabinet (and used too much of by accident) and some apple cider vineagar. (That stuff is so tricky–always makes me think things will turn out tasting like apple cider…uh, nope.)

Oh but I did add in some mandarin orange juice from a small can. (that’s close enough to OJ, right?)

This is what I did for the Topping:

1 1/2 cups white whole wheat flour

About 1/2 cup of white sugar (I was going to use xylitol but thought better of it since everyone’s digestive track is already on hyperdrive at the moment – no need to add to that anymore)

About 1/2 cup of lightly packed brown sugar

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup barley flakes

1 TB flax seed mill

1 tsp cinnamon (you can use nutmeg with/or but I don’t care for it as much so didn’t use it)

1/2 pound (2 sticks) cold unsalted butter, diced.

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 350

Get all your fruit peeled and chopped up (as above) and mix it all together with the juice (and lemon peel and vinegar if you want to use that but I wouldn’t recommend it). Put this into your lightly buttered/greased baking dish. (whatever size you want depending on how thick/thin you want it and how much fruit you had available)

Then mix all your dry ingredients together in an electric mixer for about 2-3 minutes if you want it crumbly or, if you want it more ‘doughy’ or you simply forget to turn it off after 2 – 3 minutes, just mix it longer but not too long or you may as well make some cookies or ‘granola’ balls out of it (which isn’t a bad idea…) Once it’s mixed to your liking, sprinkle it over the fruit, stick it in the oven and bake it for about 30 minutes (until the topping is slightly browned [not burned] and the juices bubble). (I also sprinkled on some more white sugar before baking, shhhhh!)

Voila, I’d definitely nix the lemon peel and apple cider vinegar on the next go around but all in all it was good. The best part was enjoying it outside in the warm sun with my 6-year-old and baby, it was a welcome break from the other two whiney needy poor innocent sickies, (pray they feel better tonight for all our sake’s!)

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