“Can’t you just make up a recipe with only 5 ingredients, that even I can make ?”

… says (a friend & neighbor) Frank, to me last night as we were leaving an exhibition in Paris, of my friend Isabelle Stell’s beautiful & whimsical drawings (check it out, she has a website of her collection of drawings called “those little things”, just click here) …

Of course I started giggling … and then I thought, “yeah, why not ?” I had already prepared some simple apple recipes last week to use up the kilograms of apples sitting on my balcony, the little green ones were given to me by my friend Frank that actually grew them on his terrace down the street from my place (and who is also the one who came to the exhibition with me and asked me the 5-ingredient question) ... It’s a great way to use up your excess supply of apples (even the older ones that are starting to wrinkle) and everything is poached in the same poaching liquid so it’s actually closer to 1 ½ recipes and not 2.

I actually used the same poaching liquid that I used for the upside-down apple tarts last week (see recipe here). I simply froze it and added a little extra water, sugar and butter to use it again for these simpler recipes. When you poach the apples in the same poaching liquid you used before and/or after making the compote, the liquid becomes extremely apple-fragrant. I initially  planned to use these 2 simple and almost identical recipes as part of a larger one (but I’ll prepare that for you too and soon).

You asked for 5 ingredient recipes, so here they are … well maybe 6 ? Is water an ingredient ? … :)