Using Up What You Have Available

There are times when your food budget is low you have to think creatively using what is available to you. For some people it's not easy to do. One example of this that I did this week was to take the left over filling for the Mini Apple and Raisin Pies and use it as a side dish to go with our braised pork chop dinner. Since it already contained the spices along with cornstarch, I added some water and cooked it on the stove top in a sauce pan to create a compote. I love braising my pork chops on the stove top after giving them a good sear. For the complete recipe on how it's done, please visit this link in my blog: Braised Pork Chops with Onion.

We are a family of macaroni and cheese lovers. One of the things you can do is combine cheeses in mac and cheese dishes. You do not have to stick with one kind. On this particular night I had cheddar along with a very small piece of Parmigiano Reggiano and Mozzarella cheeses that needed to be used up. I took all of it and used the shredding blade of my food processor to shred it up. The processor cut my work down tremendously. Here's a photograph of that dish. I also used some of the last of the garden tomatoes that I roasted in the oven to blister the skins. For my original macaroni and cheese recipe, follow this link to Macaroni and Cheese. This particular dish warms up beautifully on the stove top with the addition of some milk to help reconstitute and make it creamy.

In this last week I also took the last of the peppers and roasted them, skinned them and jarred them for using on sandwiches. It cost far less to do than purchasing a large jar at the store and it was fun. Roasted peppers go really well with ham, really well.
With the huge box of apples I have made a pie, hand held apple pies, apple fritters and then the mini apple and raisin pies and the apple compote. If I put my mind to it I am sure I can come up with other recipes to use up the bin of apples I still have and when I do, I'll post the recipes.