i’m so lucky to be renting an apartment with nectarine trees growing in the plot next door. i’m even more lucky that my gracious landlords shared the harvest with me. there were so many in the bag, but most of them were past their prime. i didn’t have enough shortening to make a pie, so i went for an easy alternative – the crisp.

i decided to totally improvise with the fruit. i’ve made apple crisp tons of times and it’s always a delicious treat. it’s the standard recipe from the joy of cooking – you blend together flour, sugar, butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and salt for the crumb topping. i didn’t think about how the nectarines would breakdown in the oven. they got peeled and sliced, then i added some sugar and flour and threw them in the pan. they were so juicy, i feared a mess in the oven. somehow it miraculously did not boil over.

it was that very juice that absorbed all of the crispy crumb topping. my improvised nectarine crisp became a thick glop of unattractive dessert. after several attempts, i couldn’t make it look beautiful in photographs. i topped things off with some quality vanilla ice cream. it was so tasty, even for breakfast and dessert!