Approx 5 pounds of fresh sliced baking apples - peeling
optional
1 pint of unsweetened, cooked cranberries (a)
spice to taste (I used cardamom... allspice would also
be good with this
mix)
Dump in corningware 2.5 liter casserole with lid (b)
Microwave until all
fruit is tender. Stir well to mix the fruits...
sweeten to taste with
WalMart's Equate aspartame ( c) Serve still warm or chilled.
the footnotes:
(a)cranberries in the freezer... WalMart "dumped" them in January
@ 50 cents
a 12 oz bag... I bought 30 bags, cooked them into an unsweetened
sauce, and
made a freezer stock of "thaw and use" pint containers for all year.
You
could use a can of commercial "wholeberry" sauce and get same results.
BE
SURE TO USE A COOKING APPLE WITH GOOD FLAVOR... many choices on
market today. Note that my ratio of cranberries to apples was about
1:5. You can also scale the recipe up or down to any amount you have
on hand.
(b) Corningware casseroles -- Mine are French white...at WalMart
for about
10 years now, and their classic-lines design blends with everything
ever
made in tablewares. I have multiple copies of
specific cookwares / dishes I like
for function and simple design. Having all of them the
same means every
lid fits every bottom half, plus they stack well in storage areas.
I do
not save ANY smaller jars that don't take a standard mason lid...
think
about the advantages of that one!! And I have
ONE KIND ONLY of freezer
storage containers... think about the advantage of that one!!
And they are
square, so the maximum amount of food can be stashed in the minimum
amount
of space. Round containers are not efficient freezer
storage.
Having several copies of my corningware casseroles also helps me
make
freezer entrees which I can stash for days when I want to get out
of
cooking. Example: toomanyeggplants in garden right
now, so I make
Eggplant Parmigiana 4 at a time. Line 3 of the casseroles
with 2 layers
Saran. Build the casseroles in all 4... cook one for supper
and put 3 with
Saran in freezer until frozen. Unmold the frozen ones,
wrap totally in
Saran, then in foil, and return to freezer. When I need
to do something
besides cook, out one comes... remove all Saran, drop back into
the
casserole that it fits perfectly into cuz it was frozen in that
shape
originally, and bake for supper.
(c)Equate sweetener is 1 cent per package instead of 3 cents each
for Equal
brand -- the price necessary because the company paid Cher to do
TV ads for
it. I have a topless canister of it on the kitchen counter,
and I keep it
heaped full so I can pick off one or a bunch of packets as needed.
Dining
table has a decorative brass box, which has Equate packets and "borrowed"
single-pak sugar from fast food places for guests who "must" have
real sugar
with their coffee. |