Rustic Reality and No-Bake Apple Crisp

For the past 5 days, we've been living without our homes' central heating! The "heater" needs to be re-lit, so until my Dad is able to fix it, we're bundling up! We've put our fireplace into good use though, and have been keeping warm with our space heater :) To add to our lack of heat, our stove and oven are off as well!!
hahaha! Do you think God is trying to test our self-sufficiency aspirations? :) Our appliances work fine, its actually a problem with the stove, which occurs when we turn on the breaker...that's why both appliances are out! :) We're in good spirits though, because we know all this will only last for a little while! But until then, we'll try to make as many "cold" meals as we can. I started it out by coming up with a "no bake" apple crisp for dessert! It turned out great (considering its COLD and not "fresh from the oven") :)

No-Bake Apple Crisp

1. Start with 8 apples (I used 4 Granny Smith, and 4 Gala Apples)

2. Peel, Core and Slice the apples however you want. Sit 2 apples aside.

3. In the large bowl, squeeze 1 lemon over the apple pieces to preserve the color.

4. In a seperate small bowl, pour 1/2 cup scalding hot water over 1 cup of raisins. Cover and let 'em plump up for about 10 mins. Drain the water from the raisins.

5. A food processer would work better, but I chopped & blended the 2 extra apples..

Then add the plump raisins! Blend until smooth.

6. Pour the apple/raisin mixture over the sliced apples, the add 1/3 cup brown sugar!

7. I poured the apples in a greased (11x13) cake pan.

8. To make the "crumb topping", I combined 2 cups Raisin Bran cereal,

1 cup of Old-Fashioned Oats..

And 1 tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp nutmeg in a large zip lock bag.

9. Now shake and crush it all up! :)

Then pour the topping onto the apples.

10. I pressed the topping onto the apples until it was evenly covered.

11. Then immediatly serve, or refrigerate for later! We all enjoyed the apple dessert, and its even better if its heated in the microwave!