Especially when you have two days to get rid of it before you leave town!
My husband works on a college campus. At the end of each semester parents can pay (big bucks) to send an "exam care pack" to their student. An outside company takes these orders, sends the boxes to the university and a student organization my husband works with is responsible for distributing them. Here's the rub... many students never come to pick up their box.
First of all this makes me sad for the parents who send the boxes.
Secondly this makes me sad because of the extravagant waste! Thankfully much of the prepackaged candy, cookies, chips, etc. can be saved and given out to student workers and kids at camps this summer.
But the fruit... the fruit!!! It makes me cringe.
I willingly took on the task of doing something about it all. There were over 250 green and red apples and oranges. Some were already going bad. I had to act fast.... what to do?
1. Give it- this is obvious but harder than you might think. Because we live on a college campus and all the students are gone, we have no neighbors... I've been passing as much as I can off to the housekeeping staff. I've also called several friends who are swinging by on their way home from work to pick some up. And we made a few special deliveries earlier today.
2. Eat it- this is obvious too. We're having some folks over for lunch between graduation ceremonies tomorrow... guess what we'll be serving?
3. Juice it- I'm planning to take a lot of the oranges home to my parents' house this weekend and will borrow their juicer.
4. Puree it- Applesauce anyone? Baby Girl LOVES applesauce... this might be enough to make her never want to see the stuff again! I'll be making this at my parents' since they have an apple corer/peeler/slicer thing and I am not about to tackle this by hand!
5. Freeze it- I never knew you could freeze apples! I'm going to slice and freeze most of the green apples to use in pies, for baked apples, apple cake, etc. down the road. I'm looking forward to giving some of these goodies away as well when I'll be in town to bake.
While I hate that the students didn't get these boxes I'm very thankful this fruit isn't going to be left to rot and then chunked in a dumpster!
We may not all have 250 pieces of fruit dumped in our laps, but we can all do our part to not let food go to waste!
For other frugal tips check out Frugal Fridays over at Life as Mom!
3 comments:
Apple Pie in a Goblet
3 large tart apples, peeled and coarsely chopped
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
12 shortbread cookies, crumbled
2 cups vanilla ice cream
whipped cream
In a large saucepan, combine the apples, sugar, water, cinnamon and nutmeg. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat; cover and simmer for 10 minutes or until apples are tender. Uncover; cook 9-11 minutes longer or until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat.
In each of four goblets or parfait glasses, layer 1 Tbsp. cookie crumbs, 1/2 cup ice cream, and a fourth of the apple mixture. Top with remaining cookie crumbs and whipped cream. YUM!
It's such an easy and quick treat....=)
Ugh, it makes me sick that these could have went to waste. A woman came to speak to my womens group recently and we learned about all the specifications for acceptable produce to sell. A really large percentage of what is grown here in the U.S. is thrown away. Seriously!
I had NO idea that you could freeze apples! Thanks for the great tip!
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