Fruit help needed!

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Manda1987
Manda1987 Posts: 207
in Recipes
My fiance came home from work with fruit.

A box of fruit.

Like, 2 dozen Royal Gala apples, 3 bunches of bananas, and 2 dozen navel oranges.

Don't get me wrong: this is pretty fantastic. We're broke right now, and fruit was one of our most expensive items. There are only two of us in the house, though, and I am getting SO sick of apple cobbler. The bananas won't be too hard to get rid of (I can make banana bread, and I love bananas for a snack), but there's so much of the rest. There is no way we can get through it without a lot of waste unless I can find a way to cook with them.

Ideas?

Replies

  • keeganstein
    keeganstein Posts: 1
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    smoothies? I make a bunch of smoothies with soy milk and keep them in the freezer until I am ready for a quick & easy breakfast.
  • bethrs
    bethrs Posts: 664 Member
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    I would peel, cut and freeze the oranges and bananas (for future combination with yogurt, cottage cheese, oatmeal, cereal and smoothies) and then use the apples in salads, as snacks, and cook them for desserts.... there are some good recipes for apples that are sweet but not high calorie or high sugar- try women's health or fitness magazine. There are even some you can cook in the microwave.

    Hope that helps.
  • McDougal416
    McDougal416 Posts: 74 Member
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    Also, w/the banana's you can throw in one cup of milk, 4 ice cubes and one banana and make a smoothie out of it..you could prob throw in an orange!!! Squeeze the oranges for fresh orange juice!!! :),oh yeah..dry apples in the dehydrater!! Don't have one? Throw them in the oven on the lowest setting..not sure how long it'll take them...but it'll work just as well..possibly even faster than the dehydrator.
  • erickirb
    erickirb Posts: 12,293 Member
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    if you have a cold room apples can last at least a month, and oranges even longer.
  • CarrieAbbey
    CarrieAbbey Posts: 378 Member
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    you could use the apples to make apple sauce, muffins, apple cake. The oranges go like crazy here, we love them. But smoothies are a good choice for them.
  • vfinkenstadt
    vfinkenstadt Posts: 17
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    You can use the orange juice as a dressing or sauce.
  • nickscutie
    nickscutie Posts: 303 Member
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    Here is a recipe for apple parsnip soup that I bookmarked, looked interesting, but have not made it yet,
    http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000002012786

    Also, you can always do some fresh squeezed OJ.

    Make some homemade applesauce!

    I have made this energy shake, and it is tasty. You would at least have to buy some greens, but honestly with your base of OJ and bananas, I think you can add whatever you want in here. Just watch their nutritional info calculation, it is way off. Calculate it yourself based on what you put in,
    http://www.bonappetit.com/recipes/2011/01/energy_shake
  • radicalreader
    radicalreader Posts: 207 Member
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    If you have a cool place to store them, the apples and oranges will stay good for weeks. I would just eat apple slices and fresh oranges for my snacks ... but then I typically eat an apple and an orange or two every day during the winter, since that's really the only fresh/reasonably priced fruit available.
  • Manda1987
    Manda1987 Posts: 207
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    Thanks guys!

    I can't really do smoothies because I'm lactose intolerant and soy milk is way out of our food budget, but it's great to hear that they won't go bad too soon if they're in the fridge. I like raw fruit, but my fiance is another story... I guess I'm off to tackle that sack of oranges!
  • amyoliver85
    amyoliver85 Posts: 353 Member
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    1) Muffins -- juice some of your apples and oranges together and use that as a nice twist on orange/apple juice. Then take the pulp and bake it into muffins to make sure you're getting the most out of your fruit.

    2) Apple & Cheese stuffed chicken breasts-- get some butterflied chicken breasts or flattened breasts that you can roll up and stuff them with cubed apples and cheddar cheese (low fat or fat free cheese with work). There's lots of different ways to make that recipe and you can just google it. I also like doing gouda and apples in chicken. It's nice.

    3) You can also do baked chicken oranges:
    Use any kind of cracker crumbs – sesame, wheat, or bacon – or substitute crushed regular or barbecued tortilla or corn chips. Cooking the chicken pieces on a rack makes it crunchy on all sides.
    Ingredients:

    * 4 Tbsp. freshly squeezed Sunkist® orange juice
    * ½ Sunkist® orange grated peel
    * ¼ cup butter or margarine, melted
    * 1 cup finely crushed crackers or corn or tortilla chips
    * 1 tsp. paprika
    * ½ tsp. seasoned salt
    * 2 lbs. chicken drumsticks (I don't always use drumsticks...sometimes I use breasts, strips or cutlets...just watch it close!)

    Instructions: (Makes 4 servings)

    * In a shallow dish, combine the peel, juice, and butter.
    * In a second dish, combine crushed crackers, paprika, and seasoned salt.
    * Dip the chicken in the butter mixture; then coat it with cracker mixture.
    * Arrange chicken on a rack in a shallow baking pan; loosely cover with aluminum foil.
    * Bake at 400° F for 40 minutes.
    * Remove the foil and bake, uncovered, 15 to 20 minutes longer, or until chicken is tender.


    I make smoothies too but I use lactose free milk in my smoothies. Or I just make a frozen juice smoothie without any of the yogurt or the milk...I LOOOOOOOVE those!
  • tkfarmer
    tkfarmer Posts: 4
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    Fruit also works great in salads. I love it with lite raspberry vinagrette. Add some sliced apples to an apple muffin mix. Add fruit to your cereal or oatmeal. Try some jello - the sugarfree makes a great guilt-free treat. slice a few apples and add them to your chicken salad.
  • joygwen
    joygwen Posts: 30 Member
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    I love allrecipes.com and sites like that to help me find new recipes. You can search for recipes based on ingredients and just type apple, orange whatever in the search line to get some ideas.
  • Pandorian
    Pandorian Posts: 2,055 MFP Moderator
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    Can it, the oranges that is!

    http://www.pickyourown.org/canningcitrus.php

    Bananas you hit upon my solution already, banana bread, and it freezes so well. Maybe banana muffins with oatmeal.

    Apples I find keep better in a cold-room (as compared to the fridge), you know like a root-cellar but they are few and far between in modern homes, I'm putting one in on my acreage this year so my harvest of potatoes will last beyond January which it hasn't the last 2 years due to spoilage from being too warm. What happens when your "cold-room" shares a wall with the bathroom, that is the wet-wall where the plumbing is so you can't let the cold-room get too cold or you don't have running water.

    edited: forgot, the smoothie part, there's nothing like a fruit smoothie, i use frozen berries which lets me use less liquid, but juice a couple apples, use that as the base for your orange and ice-cubes, no... milk products needed to affect your lactose intolerance
  • Manda1987
    Manda1987 Posts: 207
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    I wish we had a cold room! We live in a fairly old house (pre 1920s) but it's an 870 sq ft row-house in an industrial city. Our basement is terrifying and very, very small.

    I'm also digging the idea of banana oatmeal muffins. Is it weird that my mouth started watering when I thought about it? I guess that's how lifestyle changes work... things that would have been "meh" before sound delicious now, and vice versa!
  • CarrieAbbey
    CarrieAbbey Posts: 378 Member
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    I love allrecipes.com and sites like that to help me find new recipes. You can search for recipes based on ingredients and just type apple, orange whatever in the search line to get some ideas.
    This is a wonderful site I use it quite frequently.

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