Peach & Berry Crisp

Last week, in my excitement at finding an obscene amount of peaches at a very reasonable price, I bought far too many peaches than I could ever hope to possibly eat. I had been slowly chipping away at the pile, eating a raw peach every day as a snack, when the rest of said pile started to get a little too soft. And so I was like, Egads! All this cheap fruit! I cannot let it go to waste! Whatever shall I doooo!? (previous scene possibly exaggerated).

So, with all these peaches on the verge of being far too ripe, I decided to make sure they would not go to waste, and that I would make something delicious in the process. And so, I came back to an article I had found last week over at Real Simple containing numerous creative ways to use up the bounty of lovely peaches available at this time of year.

This kind of peach. Perverts.

I went through all of them, multiple times, before I found one that seemed just the right amounts of easy, delicious, and requiring ingredients that I had in the house: Peach Crisp. Though it called for more peaches than I had, I was able to supplement the amount of fruit with some berries I had in the fridge. I was hoping for a tart yet sweet late-summer-fruit feel, and my instincts were spot-on. These fruits came together in a wonderful medley of flavours that let me pretend, if only for a few brief moments, that summer was going to stick around for a while. Summer-lovers, this one's for you.

Ingredients

Filling:

6 peaches, sliced

1-1/2 cups fresh blackberries

1-1/2 cups frozen strawberries

1/3 cup white granulated sugar

1 tbsp white all-purpose flour

Topping:

3/4 cup flour

1-1/4 cups light brown sugar

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut up into little pieces

2 cups rolled oats

Method

Mix the fruit together in a large bowl with the granulated sugar and 1 tbsp of flour. Dump it all into a large, shallow baking dish and set it aside. (I forgot to add the flour here, so I mixed it in the baking dish like a fool. Also, my dish was pretty deep. It still turned out fine.)

In another bowl, mix together the brown sugar, salt, flour and butter with your fingers, pinching the mixture as you go along. After a few minutes it should resemble coarse crumbs. Add the rolled oats and mix roughly. Sprinkle this mixture on top of your fruit, squeezing it as you go, making large coarse clumps. It should look uneven and messy and glorious.

Bake in a 350-degree F oven for 45-55 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown and the fruit is bubbling.

Serve warm, with vanilla ice cream for extra delicious.

And there it is: the best way to make the most of summer's delicious bounty! Remind yourself as you eat it that you are eating fruit. And fruit is good for you. That technically classifies this as health food. You're welcome.