Smile-breaks
Making Peach Crisp
Making peach crisp is easy. Wait! Come back! Peach crisp is gender neutral. Guys can make it; gals can make it; everyone loves it. Just grab a can of peaches and dump them in a casserole dish. Wait—not that skinny little can; you gotta get two of those fat cans.
Be sure to get the Alberta peaches if they have them—Albertas have this nice fuzzy texture with the little reddish tinge at the end. Get slices, not halves. If they don’t have Albertas, grab two cans of the regular slimy, slippery peach slices. Make sure they’re in heavy syrup—not that lite stuff.
Next you need some Bisquick, sugar and margarine—okay, butter, if you’re a real food connoisseur. Vanilla ice cream tops it off, so if you don’t have any of that, better get some while you’re here. Whipped cream’s okay, but it doesn’t have that solid, creamy texture of ice cream to mix with the rough crumble of the crisp as it rolls over your tongue.
Don’t forget to preheat the oven. Oh! Forgot to tell you: you need to partially drain the syrup from the peaches as you’re pouring them out of the can. If you didn’t drain them, just put the peaches and syrup back in the can and start over. Use the can lid to keep the peaches from falling out of the can while you’re draining them. Oh—you threw the lid away? That’s okay; hold your hand over the top of the can; that’ll do.
What about the oven? Oh, sorry. Four hundred degrees.
Now for the crisp: Pour two cups of Bisquick into a bowl big enough to hold two cups of Bisquick. Melt a half a cup of that margarine and measure out 2/3 of a cup of sugar. White, not brown. If you really love brown sugar, sprinkle a little in with the white stuff. Not too much, though.
Spice it up with cinnamon and nutmeg. If you’re clean out of nutmeg, use more cinnamon. I won’t tell. Add the spices to the mix. You did put the sugar in, didn’t you? If you didn’t, do it now before you put the spices in. Hope you didn’t already put the spices in—they’re awful hard to take out and put back in after you add the sugar.
Pour the melted margarine over the mix and crumble it up until everything’s good and crumbly. Hands are best, but a fork will do if you’re squeamish about getting your hands messy. Sprinkle the crumbly mixture over the peaches—it won’t go evenly, don’t worry about it.
Bake it twenty-five minutes ’til lightly browned and you’re done. All that’s left is to scoop it into a good-sized bowl, top it with vanilla ice cream and dig in. Don’t forget to offer it to anyone else who happens to be in the room or you’ll be in trouble.
Short version: Dump partially drained peaches into casserole dish; preheat oven to 400; melt butter; mix Bisquick, sugar and spices; add melted butter; mix until crumbly; scatter over peaches; bake 25 minutes; top with ice cream; eat.