Apples Apples Everywhere

I want to start out this week's entry with a correction to a previous blog post. In this post I mentioned the Gap's Recycle Your Blues program and wrote that if you "Like" their facebook page, The Gap will give you an additional 10% discount on top of the 30% that they give for recycling your old jeans. Unfortunately the additional 10% off is only available in the US. I apologize for this misinformation!

On to new and exciting things...

This week's Adventure in Domestication is a crispy on the outside, soft on the inside, perfectly sweetened, fall treat. I had the opportunity to go apple picking at an orchard outside of the city and I came home with about 25 apples of different varieties. As you may already know, I live on my own, and can't eat 25 apples before they go bad! I did some research online about different recipes that call for apples. I have never been a fan of baked apples and apple pies and cobblers so I wanted to try something a little different.

One recipe that really caught my eye was this one for Apple Latkes. This recipe called for ingredients that I already have in my home, it seemed pretty easy, and promised to be delicious.

I would be lying if I told you this adventure wasn't challenging, and I realized the benefit of certain kitchen tools like food processors and egg beaters...and whisks.

I started out by peeling the apples with a potato peeler. I prepared a bowl with cold water and some lemon juice for the apples so that they wouldn't begin to brown.

 

When the apples were peeled I cut out the core and grated them with the only grater I own. It has smaller holes than a standard grater, which meant more work for me but the end result was more what I was looking for than if I had used a standard grater. When my mom makes potato latkes for Channukah she purees the potato rather than grating it, so the consistency of my apples actually came out a lot like the way my mom does it, which I love. I added the lemon juice and sugar to the apple mixture and set it aside.

I washed, cracked, and separated 2 eggs with ease. But here is where it got challenging. The recipe says, "in separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form; beat in remaining sugar until stiff peaks form." To me, this implies that you own an egg beater...or a whisk...I seem to own neither of these so I settled with a good old trusty fork and started beating the egg whites. 10 minutes later they started to get a bit foamy but they weren't forming any type of 'peaks'. 

20 minutes later I was still working away at the foam, but still no peaks. I decided to add the sugar even though the egg white hadn't formed soft peaks and continued to beat.With a tired arm I looked online for tips for beating egg whites. Following the advice, I added a splash of lemon juice to the foam and kept trying to make it work. I even tried using 2 fork to beat the egg whites but another 10 minutes passed and although the egg had fluffed up quite a bit, it wasn't forming the peaks that the recipe called for. I considered giving up and eating the apple mixture as apple sauce but I questioned how important the consistency of the eggs really was and decided to use it as is!

I beat the egg yolks (soooo much easier than the whites), added the flour and cinnamon, and folded in my sad excuse for egg whites.

I heated a large pan with canola oil and fried up the latkes. But

instead of just frying them like the recipe calls for, I decided to once again incorporate in my mom's way of making potato latkes. I fried them on both sides until the outside was golden brown, and then I baked them slowly at 350 degrees until the insides were no longer overly soft.

The end result was delicious and I am happy that I was able to use some of the apples in an original way.

Now what to do with the rest of them?