Cheap & Cheerful Suppers for early November

Friday
Pumpkin-Peanut-Black Bean Burger patties topped with curried mayonnaise
*oven-roasted white and purple potatoes
*fresh tomatoes
*fresh pears
*blackberry-rhubarb crisp for dessert

Saturday
chili with beef
homemade whole wheat French bread
*fruit salad (using up odds and ends of fresh fruit on hand)
popcorn balls

Sunday
corn souffle -- using frozen corn instead of canned, with green peppers as an add-in, and chicken pan drippings (from freezer) from roasting chicken legs, as part of the liquid for extra flavor
roasted acorn squash (mashed with butter, cinnamon and pinch of salt)
fresh oranges
leftover French bread
*leftover blackberry-rhubarb crisp

Monday
*turkey pot pie (with frozen turkey in stock, garden Swiss chard, garden beet greens, garden potatoes, onions, carrots, frozen peas and greens beans, under a scratch crust)
leftover roasted acorn squash
leftover popcorn balls

Tuesday
leftover Pumpkin-Peanut-Black Bean Burger patties, topped with
*fresh tomato slices and homemade 1000 Island dressing
brown rice (cooked in chicken stock, with minced onions and garlic, for extra flavor)
*kale and onions, sauteed in sausage fat from freezer
*applesauce from the freezer

Wednesday
turkey-bean burritos -- using frozen turkey, cooked in tomato juice and spices, along with refried black beans, chopped green pepper, black olives and diced tomatoes, in homemade flour tortillas
*apple, pear, dried cranberry and chopped almond salad (dressing made of mayonnaise and jelly)
frozen corn

Thursday (easy night, I'll be out in the afternoon)
homemade pizza from the freezer -- cheese and olive on homemade half and half whole wheat flour/white flour crust
fresh oranges
frozen green beans



As I was taking photos, I was noticing how much of each plate is covered in fruits or vegetables. some dinners are more so than others. It's a good way to ensure that no matter what else we ate that day, we are getting a full complement of fruits and veggies through our dinners. Seems to work for us.

The Pumpkin-Peanut-Black Bean Burger patties were a huge hit, and will be repeated. I used chunky-style peanut butter, which gave the patties an extra crunch.

And I love pot pies! I never do a bottom crust, as it just gets soggy. But there is something about that taste of top crust, along with a bite of gravy that makes my heart swoon! I'm in love. As much as I love summer berries and vine-ripe tomatoes, the comfort foods of autumn steal my heart every fall.

There is a lot of turkey in our menus these days. I thought it would be best if we finished off last year's turkey leftovers (in the freezer) before I added new turkey leftovers. I have a container of turkey in stock, thawing right now in the fridge, for a pot of Turkey Minestrone Soup for tonight's dinner.

What was the most delicious thing you ate this past week?

What to do when life gives you mealy apples? Turn them into a tasty snack

Our local produce stand closed for the season, the other day. I made sure a stop there was on my calendar before they closed. One of the items I picked up, was a 24-lb box of new-crop apples, at 37cents per pound. They were tagged as "new crop", so I thought they'd be good. They smell fantastic. But they've been a disappointment in texture. I should have asked to buy one at the case price, to check them out.

Bummer, right? However, I've discovered that I can salvage quite a lot of foods, at least the ones that haven't spoiled. These apples have good flavor. They're just not really crisp.

When a food is dried out, you add moisture. When it is too soggy, you dry it out. If it is bland-tasting, you add flavor. If it is too flavorful, you tone down the flavor with the addition of bland ingredients. With apples, that are verging on mealy, you change the texture and form of the apples.

Tossing the apples out isn't an option for my budget. But I do have a few possibilities. I could make some into applesauce. I could make a batch of spiced apple butter. I could add dices to breads, muffins or cookies.

What I am really wanting, though, is something that could be a snack or lunch item, without the extra ingredients of baked goods. I bought these as lunch and snack apples, so that is my hope and plan for most of them.

Enter the idea of turning these into apple chips/dried apple rings. They're simple to make. Slice thin, and dust apple rings with cinnamon and sugar, then dry. So easy and quick -- less hands-on time involved than baking a batch of cookies.

This is what I use:

1 apple per food dehydrator tray (I have a SnackMaster)
1 teaspoon of sugar per apple
1 scant teaspoon of cinnamon per apple

small serrated knife or mandoline
something to core the apple rings with (I have a small plastic orange-corer thingy)
large bowl for tossing apples with cinnamon and sugar

And this is how I make them:

Wash the apples well. Pat dry. Slice off the top. Slice apple into 1/8th inch slices, leaving skin on. One slice at a time, remove the center seed cavity of each slice, with corer.

Toss apples in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. I do this, gently, with my hands, and only toss one apple with cinnamon and sugar, at a time, to prevent the rings from breaking.

Place the slices on the food dehydrator trays, as close as possible, without overlapping. Set the temperature to 135 to 140 degrees F. Dehydrate for about 5 to 6 hours. Allow to cool, then pack in airtight container. About 2/3 the way through drying, I switch the trays around, top to bottom. In my machine, the bottom tray dries them faster, so this evens out the drying.

If you want your apple slices more like chips, allow to dry for slightly longer. When dry to your liking, spread them out on a cooling rack. Once cooled, pack in airtight containers. Check for condensation after a day. If there is any condensation inside the container, on the lid, or on the inside of the bag, they need more drying time. Just pop them back into the dehydrator for another hour, or spread on a baking sheet and put in an oven which is cooling after baking (check after 20 minutes).

The above photo shows all that was left from 4 apples. I ate the tops and bottoms of the apples, raw, as a snack after taking this photo. They just don't dry as well, because of the skin. So, after my snacking, all that remained was the core. Not bad on the "waste not" front.

These are soooo good. After dehydrating, there was not even a hint that the apples had been on the mealy side. Most of the time, when I try to salvage a food item, the salvaged item is not quite as good as the original should have been. But these apple chips are better than fresh apples, according to my family. And you'd never guess that I used mostly mealy apples for these.

Something to mention, though -- although I used apples verging on mealiness, really mealy apple slices will break when you try to core them, or handle too much. Unless you are really set on having perfect apple "rings", this shouldn't be too big of a problem, if you're just trying to use up mealy apples. Apple slices that are halved are snack-able, too. Once dry, however, even the mealy apples hold together nicely.

With our box of apples, we found the larger, darker red apples to be most mealy, and smaller, lighter colored to be less so. As a result, we've been eating the smaller apples, fresh, and in apple salad, and I used the larger ones to make most of these chips. So far, I've made 5 1-quart jars of cinnamon apple rings. I've got about half of the apples left. I may do some dried cinnamon apple pieces, for adding to granola, next.


No dehydrator? You can also make these cinnamon apple chips in an oven, set at 200 degrees F. Place apples on silpat or parchment-lined baking sheets. Turn every 30 minutes. They should be dry in about 1 & 1/2 hours to 2 hours.