A mild complaint and a quick easy dessert

A frustrated cook, one without an audience—that’s me. I clip and find and even invent recipes that sound wonderful to me, but others I cook for turn aside.  I found a recipe the other day for orange-cranberry shortbread—the response to a mention was “I don’t eat cookies.” I want to make kalpudding, a traditional Sweish meatloaf with caramelized cabbage—but someone else doesn’t like cabbage. And I really wanted to try making my own gravlax for a small gathering of friends—but two of them don’t eat raw fish, one for a valid immune deficiency problem.

So here’s a recipe I save for company, because some in my family don’t eat cooked fruit. This is quick and easy. As given it serves two, but you can fiddle with the proportions. Dessert doesn’t often figure in my menu planning—unless it’s chocolate. Seriously, I rarely fix dessert, and I never bake a pie. A whole pie for one is ridiculous—or even for two if I have company. But individual crisps and cobblers are a good way to go.

Fruit crisp for two

2 cups fruit – blueberries, raspberries, apples, pears, whatever

1 scant Tbsp lemon juice

¼ cup flour

¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar

¼ tsp. salt

½ tsp. cinnamon

¼ cup butter, softened but still firm

Butter two individual ramekins thoroughly. Slice fruit and arrange in ramekins. Mix flour, lemon juice, brown sugar, and cinnamon together. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly. (If your butter is too soft, you won’t end up with crumbly; you’ll get paste). Sprinkle over fruit.

Preheat toaster oven to 350. Bake for 25 minutes. Lesson learned the first time I made this: I baked it ahead since I couldn’t use the hot plate and oven at the same time. Then I cooked supper, and while we ate re-heated the apple crisp. At least I thought I was reheating it. What I actually did was cook it a second time. The apples turned to mush, like applesauce—overcooked. If your sense of timing is better than mine, let dessert cook on its own while you serve dinner.

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