i was totally anxious during the vice presidential debates the other night (i was sure cheney would wipe the floor with edwards and i didn't really want to witness it), so instead of sitting in front of the tv with charles and tommy, i headed towards the kitchen to use up some of the apples from our carter mountain orchard extravaganza (pics should be up soon) and make an apple crisp.

i was originally inspired by this recipe here, but since i can't read, am terrible at following directions, couldn't find dates at whole foods, and can't do the basic math in order to convert grams into cups, etc, i kind of flew by the seat of my pants and just mixed a whole bunch of ingredients together. it came out not terribly, but i think i added too much milk to the topping and so it wasn't as crumbly as it should have been. but it's pretty good heated and covered with a ton of vanilla ice cream. anyway, if you want to know the recipe, eccola:

-preheat oven to 400 degrees

-take 8 apples and peel and core them (the afternoon before i made the recipe, i asked tommy via IM if we had a corer at home. he responded by laughing hysterically, apparently because this is not a reasonable question to ask. i told him that he and charles are very domestic and gay, and they should not be surprised if people were to ask them if they owend an apple corer). anyway, i just used a knife to slice and peel. i am lucky i still am in possession of all of my fingers.

-arrange the apple slices in a buttered baking dish. oh yeah, i would use a smaller baking dish rather than a large baking dish. i think the one i used was too big, and i ended up not having enough topping to spread over all the apples.

-take 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 oatmeal, 7/8 cup of all-purpose flour, and a stick of salted butter. dice the butter and mix them all up. the original recipe says to do this with a food processor, but i just did it by hand in a bowl. i think a food processor would be a much better idea, as i ended up with a lumpy mess. the original recipe also suggests adding a small splash of milk. i would not do this, because your small splash of milk might accidentally turn into a huge splash of milk, and then you have a lumpy, milky mess. i also read another recipe that suggests mixing all the above ingredients (minus the milk) in a big ziplock bag and squishing it with your hands. that sounds fun, so i'll recommend that.

-spread your lumpy mess over the apple slices in the baking dish. before spreading said mess, i also sprinkled some white sugar and added pats of butter to the apples in hopes that it would somehow salvage the whole thing.

-bake for 45 minutes to an hour, until apple juices are bubbling and the topping is crispy and golden brown. let it cool a little bit, then scoop some out and serve it with vanilla ice cream or cool whip. luckily, baked apples are essentially good and hard to screw up, so even if you've fucked everything else up, it should still taste alright.

voila!