apricot breakfast crisp

every morning this week i woke up to bright sunshine, a squeaking toddler and a counter filled with apricots. as i fuddled around making the morning coffee (pour cold water into the electric kettle, measure and grind coffee beans, wait for water to boil, pour water over ground coffee in french press, wait 4 minutes) i would spend those minutes thinking about what the day's apricot adventure would look like.

 

this week, i made a lovely little compote of bourbon, lemon juice and zest, sea salt and local honey and i dried a small batch of the apricots.

each morning, as i sipped my first cup of coffee, and if nixon felt like letting me, i would flip through my cookbooks for some apricot inspiration and i was so pleased to stumble upon this recipe, from deb at smitten kitchen, for her apricot breakfast crisp.

its a lovely balance of tart, sweet and crunchy and does double duty as breakfast (with a dollop of plain yogurt) and dessert (with a scoop of vanilla ice cream).

if you want the precise recipe, pop on over here and check it out but if you just want a general outline (and crisps are terrific for throwing together without a specific recipe) then see below.

basically, do this--

wash, pit and quarter about 1 pound of stone fruit or some sort of juicy little berry.

in baking dish--mix the fruit or berries with 1T or so of flour, a couple spoonfuls of sugar and a little nutmeg or cinnamon and mix it up.

for topping, mix 1/2 cup flour, 1/2 cup oats, 1/3 cup sugar (i did a mix of reg sugar and brown sugar), 4T melted butter, cinnamon, heavy pinch of salt, some chopped up almonds or walnuts. sometimes i add in a little almond or vanilla extract. mix until it clumps then dump onto the fruit and even it out a little.

bake at 375 or 400 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the top is a lovely golden brown and you just cant handle the amazing aroma filling your kitchen anymore.