Now that my eldest son is at University, it feels as though cooking family meals has been radically simplified. First of all, my younger son announced to me that he wanted to reduce his consumption of meat. Since I had been fighting the losing side of this argument for the past year, I was happily surprised! (My firstborn is a hungry carnivore.)
Last year I listened to a Ted talk by Graham Hill that made a lot of sense to me called Why I'm a Weekday Vegetarian. (https://www.ted.com/talks/graham_hill_weekday_vegetarian). While there are so many arguments to be vegetarian, I think it is more realistic, and thus more impactful, to simply eat less meat, optionally on weekends, for example. Cutting out meat 5 days a week is already a huge step for the planet.
Anyhow, this is an easy baked apple recipe that I found on Saveur. As always, I made a few variations...my apples were different, the store had no Calvados, my sesame seed stash is of black sesame seeds...cooking seems to be an endless stream of variations that evolve one recipe into another.
Ingredients:
2 granny smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into wedges
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons honey
1 tablespoon Calvados or other apple liqueur (I used GranPomier)
1 teaspoon toasted black sesame seeds
Greek yogurt, for serving
Instructions:
Heat the oven to 425˚F (220˚ C)
Place the apples in a baking dish and toss with honey, butter and apple liqueur.
Roast for 20 minutes until soft and caramelized. After about 10 minutes, turn them over in the pan.
Transfer the apples with all their juices into bowls and sprinkle sesame seeds on top.
Serve with a dollop of greek yogurt (or creme fraiche).
photo: Wave tableware for the Big Arrow-Maia Ming collection.