Fresh Fruit Crisp

I have come to love a fresh fruit crisp for dessert on the weekends.  There's cobbler, with a crust, and then there is crisp with an oatmeal topping, which is crispy and delicious.  I used a deep dish pie pan, and kinda eye balled it on the amount of fruit to cut up.  So, say about 3 cups of strawberries (more), raspberries and blueberries.  Set aside.  I used a baking spray in the pan first.

The crisp consists of 3 cups of oatmeal, 1 cup of flour, 2t salt, 2 cups of brown sugar, 1t baking soda, 1 cup melted butter (2 sticks).  Mix altogether, and then scoop about 1/4 of it into the bottom of the pie pan.  Then spoon the fruit over that.  Top with the remaining crisp topping.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes, or until the fruit bubbles

Cooked and out of the oven

I served it with Trader Joes Vanilla Ice Cream!  It will be excellent for breakfast in the morning, with a good cup of coffee!

Chicken-spinach roll-ups, dessert tossed salad

What to do with two packages of chicken breasts? After looking in my refrigerator I decided to combine several ingredients for a casserole. Because I seem to make salad after salad for dinner I thought I would shake it up this evening and make a tossed dessert salad. Strange? Maybe...

First, I cut the large pieces of breast into halves after pounding them to an even thickness.

after pounding the breast sections they were set aside

one pound of fresh spinach was blanched in boiling water for one minute, then drained & cooled

While the spinach cooled, other ingredients for the stuffing are prepped:

in a mini food processor, I chopped 1/4 cup pinon nuts and 1/4 cup pecans

after chopping the nuts have an "oatmeal-like" consistency

2 cloves garlic were chopped

this poblano chili was seeded, chopped, and one-half was added to mixture

once the spinach is cool, squeeze the moisture out in small batches

once the moisture is removed, these parcels of spinach

are roughly chopped

garlic, spinach, poblano chili, nut mixture are blended together

spoon stuffing mixture onto each chicken section

one slice of bacon is rolled around the stuffed breast

a mixture of sour cream, hummus, and goat cheese was combined

the creamy mixture was spooned on top of each breast, then smoked paprika was sprinkled over the top

The breasts were baked for 1 hour 45 minutes at 325 degrees.

finished casserole-yum!

The chicken could be served over rice or is a stand-alone dish. I served the chicken with sauteed mushrooms and scallions.

Dessert: tossed salad with fruit

Weird? Probably. I have to say it was very good! The family gave it a thumbs-up!

Dressing:

2 T balsamic vinegar

3 T oil (I used a combination of walnut & hazelnut oils)

mashed blueberries & strawberries

1/2 tsp chili powder

zest from one orange

2 T fresh squeezed orange juice

Emulsify ingredients in a small closed container. Toss on salad greens immediately prior to serving

Yum!

The salad was tart and tangy.

I could easily have served this with the meal, but it was fun to

serve something different & surprising for dessert.