An Abundance of Apples

For some reason, my mother amasses large quantities of food that she then needs to foist on me. Recently, my mother bequeathed pounds and pounds of apples to me. Since I already have quite enough eating apples from my Full Circle Farms box, I began using apples in every recipe I could.

First, I made applesauce.



Not just any applesauce, though. Applesauce made with cardamom pods and cinnamon sticks simmered in cider, with a couple of spoons of pomegranate molasses stirred in at the end.



I love you Jayne Cohen! (For the recipe, you must read her book Jewish Holiday Cooking, which is an awful title compared to her first book, The Gefilte Variations, but what can you do?)

Then, I made apple-ginger muffins.

I used Deborah Madison's basic buttermilk muffin recipe in Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. She includes a variation that calls for dried apricots and crystallized ginger, which I followed - except that I swapped apples for the apricots. Yummy! I think, though, that next time I might include a few raisins or currants, too. 

Then I made Apple Apple Bread Pudding, from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my home to yours.  

 

This recipe was rich and fabulous and very well received. I imagine its popularity had something to do with the layer of apples caramelized in butter and sugar and the generous slather of apple butter on each slice of bread. Oh, and enriching the custard with an extra five egg yolks (leftover after making the chocolate chip cupcakes, which call for five whites) probably didn't hurt, either.

I also made Baked Oatmeal with - guess what? - apples, but forgot to take a photo. To visualize baked oatmeal, picture...oatmeal. In a 9 x 9 pan. It's better than it sounds, possibly because of chunks of apricots and crystallized ginger that were folded in along with the apples. Mmmmm.