Besides applesauce...

June 9, 2017 8:27 PM

What can I do with a whole bunch of partially-eaten apples? Looking for some (relatively) easy and (relatively) nutritious ideas.

So, my four-year-old and two-year-old like apples. A lot. We leave the fruit bowl on a low shelf so that they can come over and take whatever they want whenever they're hungry. The problem is that often they'll eat around the apple, enough to take off the skin and get a moderate amount of the fruit, but will still leave plenty around the core that's perfectly edible. Sometimes they'll "finish" 2 or 3 this way in one sitting.

So what do I do with the remaining apple part? It would be a shame to throw away so much edible fruit, and while I have no qualms about cutting away and using the good parts that they leave behind, I just don't like apple enough to keep up with them. (And no, they won't eat the parts that I cut off. Kids are kids.) Other than setting up a small pie factory, what should I do with all this apple?

Note: while I'm a pretty good cook and am happy to experiment, a NYC kitchen is too small for any super-exotic equipment. Also, these are almost exclusively Fuji apples, in case it matters.

posted by Guernsey Halleck to Food & Drink (21 answers total)

Once when we had a bushel of apples, I just added apples to EVERYTHING I MADE. Anything that I added, like, onions to? I put apples in. Like, stuffing, any chicken dish, soup. And it tasted fine.

Also, read "Beezus and Ramona" for Ramona doing exactly that with apples. Hee. Your kids will love that book someday.
posted by Aquifer at 8:35 PM on June 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

Do you have a juicer? Something in the vicinity of "strained applesauce" comes to mind, if not apple juice, unless you can cut the cores out and then you can just make regular applesauce. Just heat them up with some water (optionally a little sugar) and reduce and moosh until they're the desired texture.
posted by rhizome at 8:39 PM on June 9, 2017

How about apple butter?

I also like to grate apple up into shreds, mix with grated (raw) beet, and toss them in a light lemony vinaigrette. Crunchy and sweet.

I have two kids who would do this type of thing too, not just with apples, but with peaches, plums, pears...basically any fruit you would eat out of hand. I started cutting the fruit into slices for them and they would actually eat the whole thing that way. Much less waste.
posted by fancyoats at 8:43 PM on June 9, 2017 [7 favorites]

You could dry the apple slices in the oven. The kids might eat them that way, too.
posted by dorey_oh at 8:46 PM on June 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

There are crazy delicious Thai recipes for apple salads with fish sauce and chili.
Maybe this or this.

Seriously. You will crave it forever like I do.
posted by littlewater at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2017

Can you buy smaller apples?
posted by JenMarie at 8:49 PM on June 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

I make a lot of baked apples. Peel apples, cut them into even-ish chunks, toss 'em in a casserole dish with cinnamon, sugar, nutmeg, Jack Daniels, what-have-you, plus a few knobs of butter and maybe a little water. Cook at 350-375 until tender.

Makes its own gravy, and you can thicken up the juice with a little cornstarch or tapioca to give it more of an apple pie texture. Good with ice cream, shortbread, or on its own.
posted by mochapickle at 8:52 PM on June 9, 2017 [2 favorites]

I would cut them into half-inch cubes and freeze, later microwave handfuls and add to
- Pancakes
- Muffins
- Porridge/cream of wheat
- yoghurt
- Or just plain or with cinnamon. My kids call those 'microwave apples' and it's their favorite way to eat them!
posted by The Toad at 9:10 PM on June 9, 2017 [4 favorites]

I'm reluctant to suggest cookinggbwith hald eaten apples for a few reasons, saliva begins the process of breaking down foods, human mouths are full of bacteria to the extent that human bites that break skin often get priority in emergency rooms, and we all know where 2 and 4 year old hands go as they make the rounds with those apples.

So I'm going to suggest making a few slices of apple to put in a separate bowl for snacking and saving the rest of the apple parts for hand pies (which use apples faster than standard pies, and don't leave you swamped with pie if you manage dough well, or apple chips (a little dusting of cinnamon before they go into a dehydrator....nom) or apple sauce. You can either use a corer/slicer or, as I do and use a paring knife to quarter the fruit and then slice out the seed bits. Feel free to toss the slices with some lemon juice or dunk them in water with some citric acid to prevent browning.

Other apple potential recipes are Dutch baby, regular pancakes, muffins, and mixed into yogurt. I do all of these by sautéing the apples in butter and sugar with whatever spices I'm in the mood for (cardamom, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, ginger). You can also make apple sorbet if you keep an ice cream maker in the kitchen. Oh. And apple jams. Or apple berry jam. Great on muffins. Also great INSIDE muffins (I especially like the recipe from The Best Recipe, by the folks at cooks illustrated).

The cooked apples + spices works well for freezing before adding butter, but loses a bit of texture (which I don't mind for baking but ymmv).
posted by bilabial at 9:23 PM on June 9, 2017 [11 favorites]

Apple flavor goes well with pork and sage. Do with that information as you will.
posted by General Malaise at 9:24 PM on June 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

I'd get smaller apples that they could potentially finish more of. If not that, then maybe cut off the eaten pieces and throw the rest into a bag in the freezer. When you have enough, make applesauce.
posted by Toddles at 9:27 PM on June 9, 2017 [1 favorite]

Answering the actual question:
bircher muesli: grate apple, mix in with orange juice and muesli (granola?) soak overnight. Eat with yogurt the next day. (recipe I vaguely remember: 1 apple, 1 orange (juiced) 1 cup muesli.)

Answering the 'huh kids' bit : I remember being really unsure of the inside of the apple when I was younger- not having the dexterity to avoid the hard case around the seeds. I was OK when they were cut up, though.
posted by freethefeet at 10:07 PM on June 9, 2017 [3 favorites]

Chop them up and mix with chopped celery and walnuts, with mustardy dressing (vinaigrette, creamy, whatever). Nice snack. You can also serve that mix on top of greens for a more salad-y salad.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 10:51 PM on June 9, 2017

For when you need the fastest /easiest: in my house "apple pie apples" was a standard toddler dessert/breakfast accompaniment/snack that never stopped appealing as the kids grew up. Cut up your apples, put in small dish with butter, a little water, cinnamon, and brown sugar or honey to taste. Microwave covered so they steam and get soft like the inside of an apple pie. Cool til eatable. Out come super yummy "apple pie apples" in 2 minutes. Since kids are kids, I would not reveal this was the leftover of the whole apple -- just a separate dish of deliciousness.
posted by flourpot at 3:31 AM on June 10, 2017 [6 favorites]

Do the kids want pets? Our guinea pig happily snarfs up all the half-eaten apples.
posted by sesquipedalia at 5:50 AM on June 10, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'd buy smaller, cheaper apples, and live with the waste, for now. Make a point of eating apples and consuming the whole thing, maybe you and another adult making it a competition to see who can leave the smallest apple core. Show them how to eat more of the apple. If they don't like the cheaper apple varieties, explain that it just makes more sense, what with the waste, and you'll buy the others when they learn to eat the whole apple. No big deal, just common sense. Teaching kids not to be wasteful is a pretty useful thing.
posted by theora55 at 8:54 AM on June 10, 2017 [4 favorites]

Dice up, cover with water, ferment for a while. Put in freezer, remove water ice an solids, drink tasty apple jack.
posted by SaltySalticid at 9:57 AM on June 10, 2017

Besides above, diced apples mixed with a light blue cheese sauce over pasta and peas is interesting especially when finished with a not oil like walnut.

I also make a compote with leftover apples using a fine dice so it can be used as topping on things. This requires only a small pan and no extra special equipment.
posted by jadepearl at 3:52 PM on June 10, 2017

A few ideas:

• Dice and freeze them in ice cube trays with apple juice for the kids to eat like popsicles
• Gather them (with a little lemon juice) in a gallon-sized freezer bag in the fridge, and when the bag is full, throw it in the freezer. Add some butter, sugar and cinnamon when you transfer it to the freezer, and you're all set for your Thanksgiving apple pie. Or skip the seasonings and use them for the recipes others have mentioned. Or for some other recipe.
• If you have a slow cooker, put them in that with some spices and water or juice to make applesauce or apple butter. Add the remains of each apple as you find them, so no need for a big dicing project, and cook until you have a slow-cooker's worth. Put that in the freezer to stir into oatmeal or pancake batter or some other form of kid-friendly food. Would even work as an ice cream topping.

Alternatively, they'd be great for a compost bin. You may not have/need a compost bin, but someone in the area might be very happy to have them for that purpose.
posted by Jaie at 9:45 PM on June 10, 2017

Oops, you didn't want to talk about applesauce and I forgot that. I'll try to make up for the error. My favorite thing to do with apples is to grab a tortilla, smear the middle third with peanut butter and throw some apple slices on it, then wrap it up into a burrito kind of thing. I also found some interesting ideas online. How about apple cookies, or maybe one of these ideas, which include an apple and honey face mask. And there's a bunch of ideas from Food Network here. I think just about everything would or at least could be made with diced apples.
posted by Jaie at 12:14 AM on June 11, 2017

collect them in a bag in the freezer and take them to a compost collection?
posted by Julnyes at 11:24 AM on June 12, 2017