My Go-to Recipe for Chemotherapy and Beyond

It was the only food that always tickled my taste buds

Photo by Nishaan ahmed on Unsplash

From October 2025 through February 2026, I underwent six rounds of chemotherapy. Although my cancer wasn’t nearly as dire as many people’s (I call it Cancer Lite), the chemo still caused its fair share of side effects.

Some of those side effects were lack of appetite and nausea. On top of that, food tasted tinny and terrible.

But I was supposed to maintain my weight, so I had to eat something. Preferably something that was good for me, but nothing was off limits.

One of the “somethings” I settled on was apple-cranberry crisp. It was the only thing that consistently tasted good during that time.

This crisp is a bit of a production to make, so these days it’s only on the menu every few weeks. My oldest daughter, who lives with me, declared she’s tired of crisp, but that means there’s more for me. I don’t think I’ll ever fall out of love with it.

Make this for yourself or your favorite cancer patient

I decided I wanted apple crisp in November. That was the season when fresh cranberries hit the grocery stores, and I thought those would taste good in there, too.

They were. The combination was magical.

Then, since I was supposed to eat lots of protein, I mixed the crisp in with Greek yogurt, which clocks in at 19 grams of protein per cup.

We started with some online recipes, like this one from AllRecipes and another one from A Fork’s Tale, and then added some flourishes to arrive at our own recipe. Since we liked the results, and it’s not that much extra trouble, we always make a double batch these days. I make the topping in two separate batches, though, because it’s difficult to cut in all that butter at once.

Photo by Diliara Garifullina on Unsplash. This apple crisp looks delicious, but there’s no need for it to be this messy!

My daughter and I usually make apple-cranberry crisp together, but I had to keep asking her for the measurements. Finally, she asked me to write it down. So, for all of our eating pleasure, here’s the recipe:

Comforting Apple-Cranberry Crisp recipe

Ingredients: ▢About 1–1/2 pounds Granny Smith apples (3–4 large), preferably organic ▢3/4 cups fresh or frozen cranberries (thaw if frozen) ▢1–1/2 cups sugar ▢2 tablespoons flour ▢2 tablespoons white sugar ▢1 teaspoon cinnamon ▢1/2 teaspoon nutmeg ▢1/2 teaspoon cloves ▢1 teaspoon vanilla extract ▢3 tablespoons water

For the topping: ▢3/4 cup old-fashioned oatmeal ▢1 cup brown sugar ▢1 stick of cold butter, cut in with knives or a pastry blender ▢3/4 cup flour ▢1 tablespoon cinnamon ▢1/2 cup pecans, chopped

Note: You can easily double this recipe and bake the crisp in two pans. We leave both pans in the fridge, but freezing the second pan is an option. You can also increase the topping ingredients to one cup each of flour and oatmeal. The topping is my favorite part, and I think of the filling as the vehicle for the topping.

Instructions: Soak the apples in water with a pinch of baking soda, preferably overnight. to help remove the wax coating. Core the apples and cut them into thin slices. Peel if desired (I leave the peels on for extra fiber and to save time). Mix with cranberries and spices and spread into a greased 9x13 pan. You can also use a 9x9 pan with a deeper layer of apples. Sprinkle the 2 tablespoons each of flour and sugar over the top of the apple-cranberry-spices mixture.

In a separate bowl, prepare the topping. Using a pastry blender or two knives, cut the refrigerator-cold butter into the oatmeal, flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon until everything is crumbly, then add the pecans. Of course, if you don’t care for pecans, leave them out.

Bake at 350° for 45–55 minutes. Allow the crisp to rest for a few minutes before serving. Eat it plain or with ice cream or Greek yogurt. Enjoy!

Thanks for reading! Let me know if you made the crisp and how you liked it! Do you have other go-to foods?

I was inspired to write this recipe down by my daughter and by Linda Lum’s story on her favorite food combinations.

If you’re interested, here’s another tasty tale:

[embed]A Clash of Family Cultures in the Gumbo Pot I kept calling for the Holy Trinity, but my daughter insisted on mirepoixmedium.com