On this beautiful fall morning my kitchen was filled with scents of cinnamon, nutmeg and apples.  I’ve had the thought to make apple crumble for the last several weeks. We bought a bushel of apple seconds from the farmers market for 10 dollars. After making apple jelly, apple jam and apple butter my kitchen was still filled with an obsecne amount of apples. This morning as I sipped my coffee and read a chapter from a book I’m reading called Awakening by Nora Roberts, I realize this morning was the morning to try making apple crumble for the first time.

      When I am making something for the first time I always start by looking up several recipes. I see what each recipe has in common and I use that as my base, then I tweak the recipe to suit my needs from there. Below is the base recipe I used https://www.recipetineats.com/apple-crumble/.

    

       The recipe called for 2 pounds of apples, peeled. I don’t care for peeling my fruit because you lose nutrients and I like my food to be as nutrient dense as possible. Therefore I did not feel my apples and honestly I couldn’t tell you how many apples I even cut up. I diced several apples. The recipe called for some amount of lemon juice. I cut a whole lemon into four pieces and squeezed one of the slices over the apples. I also added some cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla, a little all purpose flour and honey and mixed it all together. In the topping I used 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1 cup of rolled oats, 1 cup freshly milled flour instead of all purpose, 8 tablespoons of butter and a little bit more vanilla. I usually make my own baking powder but haven’t gotten around to it yet so I just use a tad bit of baking soda and cream of tartar. The only items I measured was the freshly milled flour, brown sugar and butter and oatmeal. I free handed everything else and It came out a tad bit sweeter than I was expecting but still delicious. The freshly milled flour added a nutty flavor to the apple crumble that was deliciously unexpected. The next time I make it I’m going to use 1/3 cups of brown sugar and see if  that is more to my liking.

       I approach Cooking and baking much more like an art than a science. That is why when you read my post you will see very few actual measurements. Most foods don’t need exact measurements to be good. People hundreds of years ago was cooking, without scales, weights and thermometers. You don’t need those things to make delicious food.  Find a recipe and use it. Tweak it for what works for your family. If it wasn’t quite right the first time write down what you would change and the next time you make it try the change and see if you like it. Don’t be afraid to experiment. I probably could have done with a little less apples or a little more crumble and even still I created a dish my family enjoyed. Dishes don’t have to be perfect to be delicious.