SAG Awards Apple-Cherry Crisp

I'm heading over to my neighbor's to watch the SAG awards tonight and after getting a delivery of apples from my CSA last week and finding a bag of dried cherries that need to be used up, I googled for some apple-cherry crisp recipes and settled on this one from Epicurious. I followed the ingredients list, even finding crystalized ginger!

For topping
1 1/4 cups old-fashioned or quick oats
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon (pumpkin pie spice makes a great substitution)
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature - for DF: use same amount Earth Balance spread
3/4 cup almonds, lightly toasted, chopped
1/2 cup chopped crystallized ginger

For Filling
4 pounds Granny Smith or Pippin apples, peeled, cored, sliced
1 1/2 cups dried tart cherries
1/3 cup sugar (Epicurious suggests 1/2 c. but that seems like it would be too sweet)
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (or the pumpkin pie spice here too)

Make filling:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Combine apples, cherries, sugar, lemon juice, flour and ground cinnamon in large bowl. Mix to blend well. Pour into the 9x13 pan.

Make topping:
Mix oats, brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and salt in large bowl. Add butter and rub in until coarse crumbs form. Mix in almonds and ginger. (Topping can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.) 

 
Adding the butter is best done with your hands, or two knives chopping it up into pea size balls if you don't want to get your hands that dirty.

Cover the top of the 9x13 pan with topping and bake for 45 minutes. It might take longer depending on your oven as the original recipe says to make in small ramekins and bake for 40 mins in those.

Serve with vanilla ice cream.