Cherry Crunch Recipe

Picture of the Day for 10/8/2014. I'm cheating and documenting an event that occurred yesterday, but I had two really good "pictures of the day" yesterday and none today so in the immortal words of Tim Gunn from Project Runway, I'm "making it work." 

So, I don't know what's come over me, but within the past month I've volunteered three times to help out with church activities. Now, this may not seem like a momentous number, but you have to understand that a) I'm as shallow as one person can possibly be and b) I like to fly under the radar when it comes to church involvement. I signed up to bring an apple dessert for last night's Relief Society homemaking* activity. It was actually self-serving since I wanted to see how apple pie filling would work with our family's tried and true Cherry Crunch recipe.** Turns out it's pretty good.

*For all my female Mormon readers, yeah, I know it's not officially called "homemaking" anymore, but I will call it that until I'm 110 years old. 

**Here's the Cherry Crunch recipe in case anyone wants to try it. It's so good!

1 white or yellow cake mix

1/2 cup melted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup oatmeal

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 cans cherry pie filling

 

In a bowl stir the cake mix, oatmeal, and brown sugar together. Add melted butter and vanilla. Stir the mixture with a fork until it is well coated with butter and is lumpy. Spread the pie filling in a 9x13 pan. Sprinkle the dry mix over the pie filling. Bake for 40 minutes at 350 degrees. Serve with ice cream when warm or whipped cream when at room temperature.

Three of the women from my ward were laughing about how they all showed up wearing yellow cardigans. Of course I had to take a picture.

Last night's activity was a speed "getting to know you" game so the younger and older women of the ward could get to know each other better. The women over age 50 sat on one side of the table. (Dang, I felt so old being on the "elderly" side of the table.) The women on the other side of the table were under age 50. In front of each person was a question for you to ask the person sitting across the table from you. Like, "what is the most adventurous thing you've ever done?" or "are you more like your mother or father?" or "where would you like to travel to?" Being my nerdy, space-loving self, I said I really want to travel to Star City in Russia. Star City is the Russian equivalent of our Kennedy and Johnson Space Centers. You had five minutes to chat with the person in front of you and then the young'uns switched seats so they were sitting in front of a new person. I have to say it was a nice way of getting to know some of the women in my neighborhood that I've never had a chance to speak to.