Hooray for long weekends! Hooray for mid-summer weather in mid-October! And hooray for tasty, tasty feasts of far too much food after a far-too-long run. Okay, not really. But it was the farthest this girl’s ever run; and it did have the bonus of pre-emptively burning off a whole dinner’s worth of calories (ish).

We had our Fiesta of Yums yesterday with LX’s family. And for my contribution, I brought dessert. It was a creation of my own based a couple of different recipes I’d found. But mine was better (feigning modesty in your own blog just seems gauche.)  And had half the calories & fat. I know. I think I’m pretty awesome, too.

Caramel Pecan Apple Crisp

Ingredients:
Apple Filling
5 large Granny Smith apples – peeled, cored, and thinly sliced
1/2 cup Splenda
1 tbsp. whole wheat all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tbsp. lemon juice
1/4 cup water
1 cup Smuckers No Sugar Added Caramel Sundae Sauce
2 tbsp. chopped pecans

Crumble
1 1/2 cups whole wheat all-purpose flour
1/2 cup Irresistibles brown sugar blend
1 cup quick cooking oats
1 cup applesauce

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350°
• In a medium bowl, toss apples with Splenda, flour, cinnamon, lemon juice, and water
• Spread apple mixture evenly into a 9 x 13″ pan
• Drizzle caramel sauce, then sprinkle pecans over apple mixture
• In another bowl, mix together flour, brown sugar blend, oats, and applesauce
• Spoon mixture evenly over apples
• Bake in preheated oven for about 45 minutes (apple mixture will bubble and topping will be golden brown)
• Breyer’s Smooth & Dreamy Half-Fat Vanilla Bean ice cream is a PERFECT topper (in case you were at all curious)
  

A snap to whip up & it tastes FAR more decadent than it actually is.

I made this the night before and popped it back into the oven at around 300°, so it was re-heated thoroughly by dessert time 🙂