Thursday's Treat: Apples Cooked in Wine

It's Thursday and time for a treat to tide you over until your weekend begins. Today, it's apples cooked in wine.

Before we begin, I need to tell you something very important about my way of cooking: I cannot follow a recipe to the letter. Bleh, too boring; where's the creativity in playing "Follow the Leader"?

If you are the type of person who must have exact measurments and times when cooking, this dish might not be for you. If you are more improvisational at the stove, welcome aboard.

Here's our cast for the day, though you are welcome to make adjustments as you see fit:

Apples (I chose Granny Smith), butter, sugar, and a dessert wine (like the Moscato I have here).

First, core the apples and slice into rings. Sadly, I do not have an apple-coring contraption so I had to make due with slicing up the apples, then trying to cut out the core with the tip of my knife. It didn't go so well and only four slices ended up looking okay.

With that done, melt about two Tablespoons of butter on your pan.

(Sidenote: is there anything better than watching butter melt?)

Once butter is melted and the bubbles have mostly subsided, place the apple rings on the pan and let them cook for a few minutes (like 4-5) before turning them over and repeating on the other side.

Shake some sugar over the apples. Once the sugar looks dissolved, pour your wine over them.

Continue cooking the apples, then turn them over one last time for a minute or two before transferring them to a plate.

As a final flourish, I drizzled some unwanted icing from Charlotte's box of toaster streudels over the apples, which you can see in the first picture.

And finally, do NOT eat with a fork! Eat with your fingers and savor every bite.

A final sidenote: You could do this with pears as well, and toss in some lemon juice if you want them a little more tart. If you don't have wine on hand, you could do a splash of cranberry or pomegranate juice (or both, I'm not going to tell you how to live). If it's breakfast time, you could put this on top of your oatmeal.

Enjoy, my loves. And if you end up making this, let me know how it turned out!

Caroline.