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!

Cinnamon Roll Apple Pie

This all started with finding a recipe on Pinterest for an apple pie, using Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls as the crust.  Intriguing?  Yes, I thought so too.  And why not?  It sounded delicious.  How hard could it be?

In searching for just the right recipe, I scanned the comments about what other people did, and one said to cut the rolls in half, before rolling them out, so I did.

I rolled them out with a glass, to the thickness that pie crust would be

I used 3 Granny Smith apples and 1 Honey Crisp.  Using a vegetable peeler, I peeled the apples.

This is the really hilarious part, because the directions said to stretch the dough to fill in the holes, and my pie crust looked like hodge podge patchwork, instead of their lovely photo.  See herehttp://www.tablespoon.com/recipes/cinnamon-roll-pie-crust/ee73362c-da1d-46ab-8b97-eab622066895.

I cut up all of the apples, and tossed them with about a 1/4 c of sugar, and 2T flour

I piled all of the apples into the pie shell, and realized that there were too many, it was too high, and out of control.  But, I didn't want to start over.  I should have used a deep dish pie pan.  I made a Crisp topping with 3/4 C flour, 1-1/2 T baking powder, 1/3 C butter, sliced, 1 C brown sugar, 1 C cooking oats. 

Pie was too high, and I was worried about it spilling all over the bottom of the oven, so I put this baking sheet under it.  Big mistake, because it didn't cook all the way though, like it should have. 

The edges of the crust were a bit crispy, and in some areas black, I pulled those off before serving

My dinner guests loved the pie.  I am my worst critic.  I would make this again, in a deep dish pie pan, and I would mix the Crisp topping in with the apples, and put in first, and then bake for 30-40 minutes.  Then I would top it with the cinnamon rolls and cook for another 20 minutes, or until the rolls looked done.  Then I would frost the cinnamon rolls.  Yummy delicious.  We'll see when try #2 happens.