More flavor Pear Crisp

Pear Crisp with Vanilla Ice Cream

As a kid growing up, I enjoyed a lot of desserts. Sometimes we would bake a cake or a pie. Other times, we might just enjoy an apple or an orange or some berries we had picked. But, a dessert we helped make ourselves was always a real treat. We made a variety of pies, but often we didn't have the time to mix and roll out dough for a pie. At those times, I would help my mother make a crisp which uses a pie-like fruit filling but just has a crumb topping sprinkled on top.

Since I'm trying to keep the calories down to lose weight and my honey has diabetes and has trouble with dishes that have starch and sugar, I tweaked a standard apple crisp recipe to come up with this version for some pears we had found on sale.

Ingredients
10 cups pears, cored and sliced
1/4 cup powdered Stevia sweetener
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup water
1 cup quick-cooking oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup agave nectar
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter, melted

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Spray a 9x13 inch pan with cooking spray. Place the sliced pears in the pan. Mix the Stevia, 1 Tbsp flour and ground cinnamon together and sprinkle over the pears. Pour the water evenly over all the ingredients.

3. Combine the oats,  1/2 cup flour, brown sugar, baking powder and baking soda together and mix them thoroughly. Add the agave nectar and melted butter and stir the ingredients together until the flour mixture is moistened and crumbly.

4. Sprinkle or crumble the topping evenly over the pear mixture.

5. Bake for about 45 minutes.

Notes
You can use ordinary Bartlett pears for this. But, I found a variety of pears on sale at our local market for the same price, so I used some Bosc pears and some red pears for this dessert. I really enjoyed the special flavor they added to the crisp.

I noticed my apple crisp recipe called for peeling the apples also. But, I generally don't do that. The skins give the dish extra nutrition and crunch!

Any left-overs should be promptly refrigerated and will keep for several days. They can then be quickly heated to serve.

And, as you can see from the picture, I like to serve this with vanilla ice cream!!!