Pretty and portioned

Ok I am really exposing my self here by sharing with you some of my kitchen secrets. I am sure most of you have heard the phrase somewhere along the lines that we have become a "super size society". This is not only in terms of the amount of food we are consuming but also the way in which our waist lines are expanding. Because I am the main cook in our house I have decided to come up with a few ideas on how to pre portion our food into proper serving sizes (hubby you can stop reading here! heheh). I will have to do another post later on my magic 1/2 cup serving ladle! But for now I am going to talk about these pretty, and portioned, apple crisp.

My friend Niki over at Organizing Connections gave me the idea when we were sharing ideas on how to freeze the 21 lbs of apples we had each picked. The recipe is simple to follow it is basically your ordinary apple crisp recipe. Then instead of baking it up in a large pan you simple layer (I used 500 ml mason jars) sliced apples, topping, sliced apples and end with a little more crumble on the top. I baked these on a cookie sheet in a 350 oven for about 30 minutes.

When they were finished they were about 1/2 cup serving and to make the jar "look" fuller I added 1/2 cup of ice cream to the top. One thing to remember when serving them like this is that you need to let the glass cool so you, your guest and of course your kids won't get burnt. Also you don't want the ice cream melting too fast if its way too hot.

~ If you have enough freezer space these can be made a head of time and frozen. Just be careful when you are thawing them not to do it too quickly as they will crack.