kitchen gadgets

P O M M E S   C O N F I T E S
( i n  t h e  m a k i n g )

I love a project and I love to cook. So, naturally when I came across Dorie Greenspan's project, French Friday's With Dorie I quickly figured out how to participate. The concept is that the group cooks their way through her book, 'AROUND MY FRENCH TABLE' by cooking the assigned recipe every Friday. It is an ongoing project so I am late to the party, as they say. This is my first week and my first recipe is 'Long and Slow Apples' (pg 390) or classically known in France as Pommes Confites. What a perfect entree to this project. I'm going to like this!!!!!

The recipe calls for thinly sliced apples - preferably sliced on a mandoline but since I don't have one I used a very sharp pairing knife, which worked great. (I got kind of obsessed with how thin I could slice an apple). I should probably have one of these very sharp and very scary looking pieces of equipment in my cooking ensemble but on the whole, I try not to have too many gadgets in the kitchen. My rule is if I need something 20 times then I will purchase. Completely random I know but it does keep me from splurging at TYLER FLORENCE'S kitchen store down the street every time I walk in!!!!

The recipe is quite easy and was quite fun to fan the layers of apples in the ramekins (another obsession here). The ramekins cook at a low temp for a long period of time and then rest for about half that time. It was a perfect all day project for me as I multitasked in the kitchen and at my desk. So, now I sit and patiently wait for the cool down part of the recipe. I am not sure my will power to wait to try these apples is as strong as it is to wait for kitchen gadgets... yum!