I adore Michigan for a lot of reasons. The lake, duh. Microbews and wineries galore…what’s better? The seasons. Yes, even winter (to an extent). Hockey – ’nuff said (go Wings!). 70 mph speed limits – amen. And fruit…lots of fruit.
This time of year is all about you-pick fruit. It’s everywhere in southwest Michigan. Fruit stands and farmer’s markets are *the* place to be. Eating locally and being more of a “locavore” is actually possible in Michigan…this time of year.
The you-pick season started with strawberries. There are strawberry patches within walking distance of my house. Granted, it’s a long walk, but it’s possible. Mr. Prevention and I turned on Pandora in the strawberry patch and picked until my racer-back workout top had left me with some unsightly tan lines. We came home and I employed his help in washing, dicing, and freezing a lot of strawberries. TWENTY pounds, in fact.
So naturally, I made fruit crisp with some of them.
The you-pick season continued on with cherries. We were a bit late to the game and the plentiful rainfall had caused the sweet cherries to rot. While a few were salvagable, they were deposited directly into our bellies before even leaving the orchard.
So instead, we picked tart cherries – a first for me. The nice part was that they had a machine that could pit tart cherries and so our 10 pounds of pitting was done in about 40 seconds. Pretty, pretty awesome piece of machinery, that cherry pitter.
While we both thoroughly enjoyed tart cherries in their natural form, another fruit crisp was made. And then another. They’re so addicting, simple, and perfectly summer.
- 1 cup rhubarb, thinly sliced
- 1 cup strawberries, halved
- 4 apricots, diced (about 1 cup)
- 1 cup raspberries
- 1 cup blueberries
- 2 Tbsp cornstarch
- ½ cup sugar
- ⅔ cup old fashioned oats
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup whole wheat pastry flour or white wheat flour,
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp salt
- 6 Tbsp unsalted butter, cubed
- Preheat oven to 350 F.
- In a 2 quart casserole dish, mix together the fruits. Sprinkle cornstarch and sugar over the fruit and toss well, until cornstarch is absorbed by the fruit.
- In a medium bowl, whisk to combine the oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, and salt. Drop the cubed butter into the dry ingredients and using either your fingers or a pastry cutter, incorporate the dry ingredients into the butter until the mixture resembles a coarse crumble. Sprinkle evenly over the fruit.
- Bake for 45-50 minutes; remove and allow to cool for 10-15 minutes before serving.
The week is nearing the home stretch 🙂
Be well,
Looks delicious! I Keep meaning to go pick some fresh blueberries since we have so many fields here in Florida.
This looks delish! I love summer fruit deserts!
This crisp looks beautiful! I completely missed the strawberry picking crop this year, but hopefully we’ll get out for blueberries!
Twenty pounds of strawberries! Wow. What a great way to use all of it up. I adore crisps.
great use of summer berries!
Looks fantastic! I love that you added apricots, I think they are an under used fruit! Can’t wait to try!
It looks great. thank you for this recipie. I love that you mixed so much berries. I think my girdfried will love it!