Love Bites

It was the hub's birthday this week. He's not much into big birthday bashes. I've never understood this. I LOVE celebrating birthdays with people. It doesn't have to be a big deal with tons of presents or anything, but it's a day to celebrate that this person is in the world and in your life. And a day to let someone you love how much you appreciate them. So despite his protests, we did have a nice birthday dinner at home, and at the end of the day it was all worth it. As we were going to bed he told me how much it meant to him to know how special I thought he was. Well worth it.

So dinner was simple but fantastic. We had pan seared filet mignon, done to a beautiful medium rare. If you ever want an easy way to cook a fantastic steak, check out the link. We also had roasted garlic mashed potatoes and roasted asparagus. A simple but really flavorful and comforting meal that contained all of his favorites.

Planning dinner was easy, but what for dessert? He's not a huge chocolate fan, so any decadent chocolate dessert would have really been about me and not him. He does love berries and I thought about a blueberry pie or the blueberry crumble bars he loved so much but I wasn't finding good fresh berries and didn't want to use frozen. Then I saw these bars from Annie and knew we had a winner. These were totally fantastic. They really tasted like a sweet little bite of apple pie, and were perfect for sharing the next day at work.

I made a few changes. Annie's post mentioned that they were a little crust heavy. I LOVE crust, so instead of reducing the crust layer I upped the number of apples used. I also increased the fruit by using an apricot preserve that had whole half (whole half? Is that legal? or grammatical?) apricots in it. The apricots and apples worked beautifully together. There are a lot of steps, but they fit together well - while the apples cook you can be mixing the base, while it cooks you can prep the top, etc. I imagine we'll be making this many more times to use up all the fall apples.

These are super sweet, tiny little bites of apple love. Happy Birthday my sweet!

Apple Crumble Bars
Adapted every so slightly from Annie's Eats

For the filling
5 medium apples, peeled, cored and diced (I used Macintosh)
5 Tbs sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup fruit jam (I used apricot preserves)

For the Base
1 1/3 cups flour
2 Tbs sugar
1 tsp salt
1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

For the topping
1/2 cup flour
3 Tbs sugar
4 Tbs butter, softened

For the icing
3/4 cup powdered sugar
3-4 Tbs milk

In a large skillet, combine the apples, sugar and Cinnamon. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, for 5-7 minutes until apples are tender but still firm. In a small cup, whisk the cornstarch and lemon juice together and add to the apple mixture. Continue cooking, stirring well, for 3 minutes or until thickened.

While cooking, preheat oven to 350 and prepare an 8x8 pan. Line the pan with foil, leaving an overhang for removal later, and grease the foil.

To prepare the base, in a medium bowl combine the flour, sugar and salt. Cut the butter into the flour mixture using a pastry cutter until it resembles breadcrumbs. Press the mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 10-12 minutes, until lightly browned at the edges.

While the base cooks, prepare the topping. Combine all topping ingredients and mix well until combined and crumbly. When the crust is done, remove from the oven and spread the jam over the warm crust. Pour the apple mixture on top, and then sprinkle with the topping evenly.

Bake 25-30 minutes (mine took more like 35), until golden brown. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. When cool, chill for about 1-2 hours for easier cutting. Cut into 16 squares and set on a wire rack set over a piece of foil for earlier cleanup. Sift the powdered sugar to remove any lumps and whisk in the milk, 1 Tbs at a time, until you get a thick but drizzlable (is that a word?) consistency. Using the whisk, drizzle on top of all of the squares as desired. Store in the fridge. They are great cold, but heavenly if they are warmed a bit before eating!