It Tasted Like Fall

What fun to have a pizza party with our neighbors Amanda and Ryan last night to celebrate our Colorado Rockies in Game 1 of the World Series! We started off with caprese (tomatoes, basil, fresh mozzerella, balsamic vinegar), assembled and cooked homemade pizzas (double-decker pepperoni, and mushroom, basil, olive), but the best part by far was this....

...this wonderful, magnificent, delicious, fruit crisp for dessert. I was inspired to make it by my very favorite Food Network personality, Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. http://www.barefootcontessa.com/. (I really really want to be her, with her kitchen, and house, and garden, when I grow up). Here's the recipe if you're interested.
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/recipes/recipe/0,,FOOD_9936_73751,00.html

The fall colors, cold mornings and nights, and the brief but beautiful snowstorm we had last weekend really inspired me to start cooking! And this was the perfect fall recipe....it tasted like fall!

I used Bosc pears and Pink Lady apples. The pears ended up being soft and juicy, but the apples remained pretty firm. I may have to experiment with different apple varieties. The topping was so yummy (oatmeal, brown sugar, lots of butter, how can you go wrong?), that I'm excited to make a new variety of this dessert every season! (peaches in the summertime, apples in the fall.....)

















Top it off with some vanilla ice cream...and it was a perfect ending to a perfectly lovely evening. (I won't even talk about the embarrassing loss we suffered at the hands of the Red Sox....the ice cream made up for it.)