Apple granola breakfast crisp, with yogurt

Even though Crayton doesn’t start work until 8 a.m., we rarely eat breakfast together. I’m usually still in bed, up late from watching iTunes episodes of Mad Men. And he gets free breakfast at work anyway. Most mornings I eat by myself.

It’s actually fine, because sitting alone at the kitchen table, I have an excuse to pamper myself. Toasted pecans on my cereal, maybe. Or oatmeal with agave nectar and diced acitrón. (As I think I’ve mentioned before, Crayton likes things plain and simple. Raisins in his cereal is as far as he’ll go.)

Lately, I’ve been on a cereal-fruit-raisin kick, and feeling kind of blah about it. Then I saw this recipe on Smitten Kitchen a few days ago: warm cinnamon apples, baked in the oven, covered with a crunchy granola topping. You top the whole thing with yogurt for a luxurious breakfast treat. (Sounds like a commercial, doesn’t it?)

Luckily, I had all the ingredients in my pantry — I like to be prepared to make granola, even if I never do — and exactly two apples in my crisper. I bought organic, unsweetened yogurt at Orígenes Orgánicos, a natural foods store and restaurant in Condesa. And I had three teeny gratin dishes I got on sale in Atlanta last month. Aren’t they adorable?

The result — warm apples in a seriously cute dish — was pretty much all the pampering I needed to take me through the rest of the afternoon. (Which ended up being fraught with Wi-Fi and printer problems.) To end the day on an even better note, I went to the bakery and bought a crusty loaf of country bread. Grilled cheeses for dinner.

My scaled-down recipe below.

Apple-granola breakfast crisp, with yogurt
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
Serves 2 or 3 as a light breakfast

2 medium-sized apples
1/8 c. mascabado sugar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
Juice of 1/2 lime
1/2 t. cinnamon
3 tablespoons agave honey
A pat of butter, about 1/2-inch thick
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1 heaping handful of almonds
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 tablespoon dried, flaked, unsweetened coconut
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 200C. (Or 350F.) Core and skin apples, and dice them into medium-sized pieces. In a small bowl, combine apples, sugar, cornstarch, lime juice and cinnamon. Mix with a spatula until well combined. In a separate bowl, add honey and butter, and zap in a microwave at half-power for 15 seconds. Remove and swirl around a bit, to help the butter melt. Return to microwave for another 15 seconds at half-power, until butter is completely melted.

Add flour, oats, almonds, flax seeds and coconut, and mix thoroughly. Taste and see if you think you needs salt. (I did.) Pour apples into three cute gratin dishes — or a 9-inch square glass pan — and top with your granola mixture. Bake for 45 minutes*, or until deep golden brown. The granola will harden as it cools. When just slightly warm, serve with a drizzle of cold yogurt.

*High-altitude directions; if you’re at a lower altitude, I’d start checking on it at 25 minutes.