Apple Crisp from Kripalu puts a little love in my heart

One of my favourite places on earth to go is Kripalu. I was incredibly fortunate when we lived in Rhode Island that it was only a 2 1/2 hour drive away. Over the course of the 4 years we lived there I was able to make the drive to the Berkshires 4 times. Now that we are living in southern Virginia, it would be more like a two day drive, so I am trying to bring a little Kripalu to my mountains here every chance I get.

If you have ever been to Kripalu then you know that the food there is out of this world. I always love learning about the many vegetarian options. Even my meat loving family (myself included) love the new recipes I come back wanting to try. So when I saw Kripalu's recipe for apple crisp come up on my twitter feed yesterday I knew I had to try it.

I was a little nervous because the recipe called for 1/2 cup of maple syrup. I'd had a recipe a few months ago that used up a lot of my maple syrup (the recipe was not from Kripalu - I don't even remember what it was from - obviously I have blocked a bad memory) and the recipe was terrible. Maple syrup to me is like gold. We lived in Quebec for two years and got a taste of what really, really good maple syrup should be. Whenever we have someone from Quebec come visit us we ask for them to cart down some syrup. The most recent friends who visited us own a restaurant and brought us a jug of the stuff unlike I had ever seen before.

(Even though I'm Canadian, I don't actually drink maple syrup by the glass - but it was the closest thing I could find to show a size comparison!)

 You have not lived until you've been at a cabane à sucre- but I digress....

I had all the ingredients - even spelt flour if you can believe it! And the kids were asking for dessert. Dessert in our house is saved for special occasions like birthdays, holidays or any time mom has a craving for something sweet.  Last night was definitely a sweet night.

We came home late from the Y and everyone was starving. I thought I was probably going to be out of luck, that there was no possible way I could throw together an apple crisp on top of trying to get supper into the oven, get the kids fed and get to bed at any decent kind of hour.

The apple crisp took under 5 minutes for me to prepare. Then it sat in the oven for 30 minutes, I had to uncover it and then it stayed for another 10 minutes. It was done just in time for us to enjoy it in our pyjamas with a nice hot cup of tisane.

Kripalu may no longer be "just down the road for me". But I'm trying every day to bring a little Kripalu to our lives. I may not have the wonder of the Berkshires to look at, or the peace that the entity of Kripalu instills in my soul, but the view from my back yard is none to shabby....

We are working at bringing a little *om* to our lives. Kripalu always puts a little love in my heart (and last night my belly too!)