Saving the World With Applesauce

For some time now, we've been getting organic produce delivered; it's a great complement to our neighborhood Trader Joe's. For a while, we took advantage of a feature that let us tweak the order.

But lately, we've been relishing the weekly surprise of coming home to a green box filled with mysterious fruit and veg. It's been working out well, but yesterday, we noticed that we had a buildup problem: way more apples that we could eat. Way more past-their-prime, mealy apples. We thought about putting them in the compost bin, but that seemed like a waste, especially since delivered-to-your-door produce hardly qualifies as cheap. But what to do with mushy apples?

We cored and peeled them, chucked out a few that were well on the way to apple cider, added a few equally mushy pears, chopped roughly, boiled for about 20 minutes, mashed, and, voila: delicious, no-sugar-added organic applesauce... perfect for latkes or breakfast.

OK, so applesauce is not going to save the world. But there's no reason to waste food, even if it's in less than perfect shape. We throw brown bananas in the freezer for banana bread, and turn excess celery into frozen mirepoix, but we're wondering: what do you do with other fruits and vegetables? Lemons and oranges? Green beans? Beets?

Comments (8)

if you have leftover bananas that have turned black, you can freeze them to use later in banana bread or ice cream...

posted by muffinman on December 12th 2007 at 10:38am
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Hurl them at my enemies.

posted by mmadden on December 12th 2007 at 10:43am
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I use my food dehydrator. Bananas on the verge of mush are perfect. So are almost rotten apples. The good thing about the dried fruits too is that they stick around for a while and are really quick to prepare. Sometimes I make soup with almost there veggies, but mostly they end up in the compost.

posted by SFGail on December 12th 2007 at 2:17pm
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mmadden--Hah!

posted by Joan A. on December 13th 2007 at 6:04am
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If you have a juicer, you can juice those guys with a lemon - it's absolutely delicious!

posted by Oven Mitzie on December 13th 2007 at 7:33am
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In visiting the farmers' markets, I have the habit of buying for a family of 5 when I live by myself. I have always found www.epicurious.com a terrific resource to determine what to do with my excessive buying habits. Just do a search on whatever the ingredient, and voila, solutions o'plenty. Over the years, such buying and www.epicurious.com searches have yielded jam to give and enjoy all year round, sorbets, soups, pickled beans to snack or serve along with meals, etc. And it may sound archaic at first, but learning to can/jar not only helps to deal with quantities, but enjoy (and preserve the best of the present) in the coming seasons.

posted by le moustique on December 13th 2007 at 5:16pm
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OK, so applesauce is not going to save the world.

Yeah, but it's fun to make, and you get to flavor it as you like.

Were you to plan ahead, it's also possible to make your fruit into pies or quick breads or muffins and freeze the results before the fruit starts to go south. This is why so much zucchini bread exists to be foisted on the unwary.

posted by wende in the twin cities on December 16th 2007 at 7:53am
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This is so funnny, I just made applesauce with my Urban Organics delivered apples. I have way too many and had the same conundrum. Also I rcvd a gift of red delicious apples. What does one do with those? Anyway I added frozen raspberries to my applesauce and a bit of pomegranite juice. It's delicious!

posted by MirandaMom on December 16th 2007 at 2:23pm
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