An oldie but now a goodie!

It has been quite an experience as I have begun to gather whole food, plant based recipes.  It has been a very hit-or-miss experience for me.  Sometimes the recipes need a little tweaking to fit our tastes, and sometimes we don't care for them at all.

I am finding that some of my old recipes can be adapted to fit our criteria.  This weekend I made a
recipe that only needed one very easy change to make it work.  I have an old recipe for fruit crisp which used butter.  I thought of two choices- to use "vegan butter" or coconut oil.  I wasn't too sure about using the vegan butter, because the water content is probably very different from the butter I would have previously used.  Even different brands of butter can have a wide margin  of difference in the amount of water in them, which can result in a very different outcome in baking. 

I chose to use coconut oil.  Since it is wintertime now, my coconut oil is solid.  If you haven't used coconut oil before, it has a very interesting characteristic.  If your home is somewhat warm in the summer, it becomes liquid.  If your home is a bit cool in the wintertime, it becomes a solid.  I ignored coconut oil for a long time, because this sometimes liquid/sometimes solid thing had me intimidated.  In fact, it's no big deal at all.  If you need to use it as a liquid and it is in a solid state, simply heat it up.  If it is in a liquid state and you need to use it as a solid, simply place it in the refrigerator or freezer for a bit.   No need for intimidation here. 

Since the coconut oil was already solid, I just measured out what I needed and cut it into the other topping ingredients.  Then I placed it in the refrigerator for a short time, just to insure it would be "clumpy".  This probably wasn't necessary.

Here is the recipe with the one simple change.  It was quite delicious.  I used apples and a few frozen cranberries, since I had some leftover from Thanksgiving.  I served it warm with some vanilla soy milk ice cream which my daughter had left us at Thanksgiving time, from Trader Joe's, (which is very delicious).  I wish we had a Trader Joe's here. 

FRUIT CRISP:
5 cups sliced, peeled cooking apples, pears, peaches, or apricots
2 to 4 Tbsp. granulated sugar
1/2 cup regular rolled oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. dried ginger
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup solid coconut oil
1/4 cup chopped nuts

Place fruit in a 2 quart square baking dish.  Stir in the granulated sugar.

For topping, in a medium bowl combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, ginger, and cinnamon.  Cut in the coconut oil to the size of small peas.  Stir in the nuts.  Sprinkle topping over apples.

Bake crisp in a 375 degree oven for 30 to 35 minutes or until fruit is tender and topping is golden.  Serve warm with nut or soy milk ice cream.

The original recipe came from a very old Betty Crocker cookbook. 

Enjoy a little sweetness in your life every once in awhile!